


Elementary Crime Travellers

by MedieavalBeabe



Series: WhoLock [3]
Category: Doctor Who, Sherlock (TV), wholock - Fandom
Genre: Aliens, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Mysteries, Nothing To Do With That TV Show, Relationship At Last, Romance, Sherlolly Relationship, Time-Space Visualiser, Using The Title Cime Travellers, travelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-29 15:25:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 28,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5132600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MedieavalBeabe/pseuds/MedieavalBeabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Tardis pitches up again in Baker Street, Sherlock and the Doctor decide to have a little fun...Wife-Swap Style!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Life-Swap

**Author's Note:**

> (This will mainly feature Hannah and Sherlock, feel like I should warn people that in advance, but the Doctor and John will feature occasionally. This will also contain Sherlolly romance, at long last)

Hannah was beginning to get rather bored of waiting for the Doctor to finish tinkering with the Tardis console. She was currently stretched out in the vast library staring up at the TSV screen in front of her as the image of the Marie Celeste glided eerily across the open water as if it were already deserted. The TSV was much more interesting than a normal television, since it actually showed any event in history, anywhere in space, but even _it_ was beginning to lose its thrill for her a little.

 

There was a clatter from the console room and she looked around, not sure whether she ought to be worried or not.

 

“Are you alright?” she called out.

 

The Doctor’s head appeared around the corner of the doorway. “Of course I’m alright,” he informed her. “It’s all fixed.”

 

“Oh, good.” Hannah climbed to her feet and switched the machine off. “I was getting a bit fed up of just watching stuff on the Time-Space Visualiser.”

 

“You could have tried reading a book,” the Doctor quipped. “Besides,” he added, before Hannah could argue, “we’ll be landing in a minute. Planet Kylos, here we come.”

 

“And I’ll bet you all the Jammy Dodgers in the world that we wind up somewhere else entirely,” Hannah replied, folding her arms.

 

The Doctor pretended to look hurt. “Still don’t trust me, Hannah? After everything we’ve been through together?”

 

Hannah smiled. “Of course I do, Doctor, but it has been happening a lot lately.”

 

“Not this time.” The Doctor led the way back into the console room and began to put away his toolkit. “I’ve done a complete rewiring of the crystalline transference circuits, replaced the burnt-out metaphysical carburettor and reversed the polarity of the neutron flow.”

 

Hannah blinked at him. “In English, please.”

 

The Doctor shot her a look. “It’s fixed, Hannah.”

 

Even as he said it, the Tardis began to make her usual scraping landing noise, and the Doctor gave Hannah a triumphant look as he brought up the scanner. His smug expression dropped, however, when he saw the familiar living room brought up on the screen.

 

“Don’t you dare say “I told you so,” he warned Hannah.

 

“Baker Street,” Hannah said, trying to sound light optimistic. “Well...we’re probably not that far out, right?”

 

The Doctor grinned at her. At least she was trying to make him feel better, faithful old Hannah.

 

“And there’s probably a mystery to be solved here,” he reminded her with a mischievous look.

 

“Then let’s go,” Hannah smiled.

 

“Hello, Doctor,” came a bored tone as they opened the Tardis door. The Doctor stuck his head out and frowned around the living room. There was no one in sight, just all the furniture where it had always been. “Through here.”

 

Hannah sniffed the air. “Oh, God!” She wrinkled her nose. “What’s that?”

 

“Eyeballs, Hannah,” Sherlock replied from the kitchen.

 

The Doctor and Hannah followed the smell and his voice and blinked at him in surprise. The kitchen had been turned into what could only be described as a make-shift laboratory, with test-tubes, beakers, tongs, Bunsen Burner, the whole lot, and a lab-coat clad Sherlock wearing a pair of goggles.

 

“Don’t touch anything,” he added as the Doctor made an interested expression and wandered closer to the table. “I’m almost finished.”

 

“Ooh, what’s this, then?” the Doctor asked, looking extremely excitable, like a child let loose in a sweet shop. “Some kind of experiment to figure out how long it takes a human eyeball to melt?”

 

Sherlock blinked at him. “Right,” he admitted.

 

Hannah leaned to one side. “Do we want to know why?”

 

“Probably not,” Sherlock replied, finishing what he was doing and removing his goggles. “It would turn even a stomach like yours, Hannah.”

 

The Doctor straightened up and clapped his hands together. “Where’s John? Still working?”

 

“Should be back in a minute,” Sherlock replied, shucking his coat and tossing it over Hannah like she was a hat stand, smiling at the muffled sound of indignation she made when he did that. He began to clear everything away. “Let me guess, the Tardis broke down again?”

 

“Again?” the Doctor repeated indignantly.

 

“Not quite.” Hannah removed the coat and checked her hair hadn’t come undone from its usual fishtail bun before folding it in her arms. “We just...ended up here.”

 

“I don’t understand it,” the Doctor added, with a thoughtful frown. “I fixed everything that was broken, I double-checked the co-ordinates, triple-checked them as a matter of fact, I can only assumed that something’s led the Tardis here, something that’s meant to happen.”

 

“Well, before you ask, there’s been no alien invasions lately,” Sherlock stated, making his way past Hannah and into the living room. He stood in front of his pin-board, which was covered in newspaper clippings all with a large red cross through them. It didn’t take a genius to work out that this meant “Cases Solved.” He scowled at it. “I don’t know what’s got into the criminal classes lately. Good job I’m not one of them.”

 

“You said it,” Hannah agreed, looking over the notice board.

 

Sherlock glanced at her and indicated the board. “This is just from this morning.”

 

“You solved all these cases this morning?” the Doctor asked, sounded awed.

 

“Well, technically that one was in the middle of the night,” Sherlock replied, in what the Doctor and Hannah took to be modesty, but which sounded like blatant casualness, “two minutes before midnight, but the principle’s still the same.”

 

The door opened and the Doctor spun around. “John! Good to see you again!”

 

John blinked at him and then grinned. “Doctor!”

 

“How long’s it been?” the Doctor asked, vigorously shaking John’s hand.

 

“Seven months, two weeks, five days,” Sherlock answered for him.

 

“What he said,” John replied with a grin, nodding to Hannah. “Hello, Hannah.”

 

“Hi,” Hannah smiled.

 

“Molly not around?” the Doctor asked, brightly.

 

Sherlock sighed, heavily, and flung himself onto the couch, ever dramatic. “She doesn’t live here, you know, Doctor.”

 

“Well, not yet,” the Doctor smiled with a wink at Hannah.

 

“What?” Sherlock asked.

 

Hannah giggled.

 

John cleared his throat before Sherlock could dwell on what the Doctor had just said. “So, um, does this mean...alien invasion...or is it just a social call?”

 

“Just a detour, actually,” the Doctor replied, seating himself in one of the chairs reserved for clients. “We were on our way to Kylos to see the Backwards Waterfalls, they flow up instead of down, but for some reason the Tardis brought us here instead.”

 

“It could be worse,” Hannah reminded him. “You remember that time we were trying to get to China and we ended up halfway up a cliff in Sicily?”

 

The Doctor grinned at her. “Proved a point though, Hannah. The Tardis is indestructible.”

 

Hannah rolled her eyes and sat down on the arm of John’s chair. “No wonder you two get along,” she commented, indicating the Doctor and Sherlock. “You can both be really smug at times.”

 

“And mad,” John chipped in.

 

Sherlock just scowled at Hannah. “At least my fashion sense is normal.”

 

“Well, I’ll give you that,” Hannah agreed.

 

“Bow ties are cool,” the Doctor insisted, doing the usual gesture of adjusting it.

 

“Hey, at least you don’t open the fridge in the Tardis and find a severed head in it,” John said to Hannah.

 

“No, but I do find some rather questionable foodstuffs in there instead,” Hannah replied. “And batteries.”

 

“Batteries?”

 

“They needed charging!” the Doctor protested.

 

“And at least you’ve never opened your front door to find a Hoix snarling at you,” Hannah added.

 

“No, but we did once open the front door and almost get shot,” John replied.

 

“Really?” The Doctor looked to Sherlock for confirmation with a grin.

 

“I don’t know what all the fuss was about,” Sherlock grumbled. “He was lousy shot anyway.”

 

“Not the point,” John replied, tightly.

 

“Face it,” Hannah insisted to John. “You have it easier.”

 

“Living with a sociopath?”

 

“Easier than living with a madman who eats fish fingers and custard.”

 

“At least he actually eats.”

 

“Digestion slows me down,” Sherlock reminded him with another well-timed scowl.

 

“At least he actually slows down.”

 

“Hey, it’s no joke having two hearts!” the Doctor exclaimed. “That’s twice the energy!”

 

John folded his arms and turned to Hannah. “I bet you couldn’t hack living with Sherlock.”

 

“Well, I bet you couldn’t hack living with the Doctor,” Hannah replied.

 

“Now that could be interesting.”

 

Everyone glanced at Sherlock, who was now sitting up and facing them both as if they were clients, fingertips pressed together thoughtfully.

 

“What could?” John asked.

 

The Doctor grinned and leapt to his feet. “I see your thinking, Sherlock; that could be quite fun!”

 

“What could?” Hannah asked.

 

“You two swapping places!” The Doctor snapped his fingers at them both. “For a week!”

 

Sherlock smiled, slowly.

 

“What, like..?” Hannah stopped herself from saying the word she actually wanted to say just in time. “Life-Swap or something?”

 

“Exactly!” The Doctor was looking quite excitable. “You could live each other’s lives for a bit!”

 

“Whoa!” Hannah held up her hand. “Doctor, I might know First Aid, but I’m not qualified to start giving out vaccinations and prescriptions!”

 

“No, I mean as Sherlock’s partner!”

 

John winced. “Can you not say “partner,” Doctor? Some people take it the wrong way.”

 

“Sorry,” the Doctor promptly apologised. “Best friend, I should have said; and John can get to see what it’s like to be you for a bit, running around chasing aliens, seeing new worlds...and you were only the day before yesterday saying that you wanted a break from that.”

 

“I said I wanted to go somewhere relaxing, Doctor, no offence,” Hannah replied, indicating Sherlock.

 

“Well, if the world continues on its sudden road of boredom, you’ll have plenty of time to relax,” Sherlock pointed out.

 

“You’ve solved about twenty mysteries in the space of a morning, Sherlock,” Hannah replied. “What do you call that?”

 

“Tuesday,” Sherlock replied, bluntly. “And it was only nineteen, Hannah, don’t exaggerate.”

 

“Are we actually considering this?” John asked. “I mean, Hannah going about solving mysteries and me travelling the entire universe in a blue box that’s bigger on the inside than the out?”

 

“To be honest, I’m just surprised it didn’t happen sooner,” Hannah muttered.

 

“Oh, come on, it’ll be fun!” The Doctor grinned at John. “Think of your favourite event in history; we could go back and see it! Or we could go forwards and discover what’s happening with your descendants! Or we could discover a planet that humans here don’t even know the existence of yet! John, you became Sherlock’s friend for the adventure of it, well, there is a whole universe out there just filled with adventures waiting for someone like you!”

 

He fixed John with his most appealing look.

 

John exhaled and then glanced at Hannah.

 

“He needs walking twice a day and regular cups of tea,” he smiled, nodding at Sherlock.

 

Hannah smiled back, seeing they were boxed in with no way out.

 

“Well, mine needs feeding five times a day, but I’m sure you can handle that. Oh, and he might occasionally blow something up, but it’s usually for a good reason. ”

 

The Doctor and Sherlock exchanged a look. This could be very interesting. Very interesting indeed.


	2. "Case: Interesting."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Tardis pitches up again in Baker Street, Sherlock and the Doctor decide to have a little fun...Wife-Swap Style!

The next morning, Hannah found herself rather rudely awakened by a sudden loud bang that jolted her out of her sleep. She blinked and then realised it had been a shot. Another one rang out and she quickly leapt out of bed, seized the wok from her rucksack and hurtled into the living room, springing through the door...to find Sherlock clad in dressing gown and pyjamas seated on the sofa and shooting holes into the living room wall.

 

 _“What the hell_ is going on?” Hannah exclaimed.

 

“Bored,” Sherlock replied, lowering the pistol.

 

Hannah blinked at him. “I beg your pardon?”

 

“Bored!” Sherlock repeated, leaping up and shooting another bullet into the wall. “Bored! Bored!”

 

He emphasised each “Bored!” with a shot, and Hannah quickly ran forwards in alarm to grab the gun from him with growl of “Give me that!” Going back to America in the nineteen fifties with the Doctor once had seen them both falling in with a crowd of gangsters, and through them Hannah had learned how to discharge a gun as well as fire it. She quickly put the safety on and emptied the bullets. Sherlock blinked at her.

 

“What happened to you?” he asked.

 

“What?” Hannah realised what he meant and patted her hair. “Nothing, it’s just my natural hair, is all.”

 

To Sherlock’s mind she looked like Medusa, her hair in wild waves that were sticking out from sleep.

 

“Oh, so that’s what you meant when you said Anderson hadn’t seen you in the mornings yet.”

 

“Well, yeah,” Hannah replied. “What did you think I meant?”

 

“Well-”

 

Sherlock didn’t finish the sentence, he didn’t need to.

 

“Right, thanks, Sherlock, thanks a bunch,” Hannah sighed, dropping the gun back onto the table, mainly to keep herself from using it on him. “And now, since I’m awake earlier than planned, I’m going to stick the kettle on.”

 

Sherlock simply turned to the sofa and walked over to it, stepping over the table en route rather than going around it like a normal person. Hannah didn’t say anything. She was beginning to lean to expect such things from him. She made her way into the kitchen and then heard Sherlock call after her “Your pyjamas are awful, by the way!”

 

“Aw, come off it, Sherlock, I bet you say that to all the girls,” Hannah called back, sarcastically.

 

“Nope,” Sherlock muttered, but Hannah heard him even so.

 

“I bet you say it to Molly,” she called.

 

Sherlock sighed, loudly. “What is it with you two? Just because Molly’s the only woman I’ve never insulted-!”

 

“Excuse me?” Hannah ducked back into the living room. “John says that you insult her all the time!”

 

“No, I don’t,” Sherlock insisted.

 

Hannah gave a sarcastic laugh. “Telling her that her mouth’s too small when she doesn’t wear lipstick!”

 

Sherlock blinked. “That’s a compliment!”

 

“Well, most people take offence at the way you “compliment” them, Sherlock,” Hannah replied, folding her arms.

 

“Well then there’s something wrong with them,” Sherlock answered, bluntly.

 

Hannah looked at him, incredulously, wondering how a human could have his brain screwed on so...wrongly. “Tell me, have you ever admitted to being wrong before?”

 

“Only when I _am_ wrong,” Sherlock answered.

 

Hannah sighed, sensing that she was losing this argument, and made her way back into the kitchen. “Do you take sugar? I can never remember.”

 

She pulled open the fridge door, gave a prompt yelp and slammed it shut again. “Sherlock, why is there a severed foot in the fridge?”

 

“Experiment,” came the answer.

 

“Of course,” Hannah muttered, tentatively opening the fridge and reaching for the milk. “I should have known at once. Oh, bloody hell,” she added, sniffing the milk. “That’s off. I’d better get some more. Want to come with me?”

 

“Why on Earth should I want to do that?” Sherlock asked, turning his eyes on her from the sofa.

 

“Well, you just said you were bored,” Hannah frowned.

 

He scowled at her. “I’m not _that_ bored, Hannah.”

 

Hannah sighed, heavily, and went back to her room. “This is going to be a very long week,” she decided, pulling on her favourite light blue sweatshirt over jeans and her usual icy-blue boots, before tying her hair back in a fishtail bun again. She was going to have to be very careful now, she reminded herself, now that she was staying with Sherlock for a while. Alright, so the last few times she and the Doctor had saved the universe together, she’d been able to control herself, but it was now even more vital that she didn’t let her, ahem, abilities, show. Not that she suspected Sherlock would be the type to have a good friend sectioned, but if word got out, well....

 

She didn’t like to think of the consequences.

 

Ignoring her coat since it wasn’t raining, she snatched up her bag and called over her shoulder “I’ll be right back!” and stepped out of the flat, also ignoring Sherlock’s mutter of “Ten minutes, twenty three seconds,” as she left.

 

Everything had been sorted the night before; she had moved everything she would need for a week out of the Tardis and into Baker Street, and John had done the same in reverse. Mrs Hudson had yet to be alerted to this swap, but she would find out sooner or later. John had given her a spare key for the flat, so she didn’t have any worries as she opened the front door...only to almost walk into someone waiting on the other side of the door.

 

“Oh, sorry,” said the voice.

 

Hannah looked up to see a man in his late thirties with his hand halfway up to the doorbell. He was tall with sandy hair, dressed in a checked shirt under his brown leather jacket and jeans that seen better days, a pair of scruffy tan brown suede shoes on his feet. Hannah wasn’t good at reading people the way Sherlock was, but his nervous demeanour, and the fact that she had never seen him before in her life, plus the fact he looked far too young to be one of Mrs Hudson’s gentlemen callers, could only make him one thing.

 

A client.

 

Great.

 

“You can go on up,” she said, politely, pointing the way up the stairs. “He’s the one in the dressing gown.”

 

“Hannah, what took you so long?” Sherlock practically snapped when she returned. He was in the process of tying his signature blue scarf around his neck, and she was relieved to see that he was now fully dressed. “Never mind, I don’t care, we’ve got a case!”

 

“Bu-!” Hannah’s protest was cut off as he grabbed her arm and yanked her back out of the flat. The man she had opened the door to blinked at her as she tossed the shopping bag at him and managed to yell “Fridge, please!” before Sherlock all but dragged her out of the building. She managed to finally regain control of her senses, and her arm, as they reached the pavement. “Hey, I’m not built like John, Sherlock, get off!”

 

Sherlock ignored her protests as he signalled for a cab, and then turned to her with a wicked smile. “Your first case, this should be entertaining.”

 

“For who, exactly?” Hannah muttered, drily.

 

“Whom,” Sherlock corrected her.

 

“Whatever!” Hannah sighed as they piled into the taxi. “What kind of case is it?”

 

“A disappearing neighbour,” Sherlock remarked, wrinkling his nose. “Only a seven because of the man’s insistence that the woman would have no reason for disappearing whatsoever.”

 

Before Hannah could ask what he meant by “seven,” there was a knock on the taxi window and she looked up to see their client peering in. “Oh, for God’s sake, Sherlock, let him in!” she sighed.

 

The man smiled at her as Sherlock reluctantly did so. “Hi, I’m Luke.”

 

“I’m Hannah,” Hannah replied. “His...” _For want of a better word,_ she thought.“...Friend.”

 

She gestured to Sherlock.

 

Luke smiled, politely at her, and she added “So, anyone fancy filling me in?”

 

“Good idea, you can take notes,” Sherlock agreed, closing his eyes and searching through his Mind Palace.

 

Hannah blinked but reached in her bag for a pen and notebook anyway. “Cleaner, Tea Girl, Coat Rack, Waitress and now Stenographer,” she muttered, flipping it to a clean page.

 

Luke blinked and then took a deep breath, filling her in on what he had already told Sherlock. In a nutshell, he had been living in Knightsbridge for almost fifteen years now, right next door to an ex-stage actress, a rather eccentric woman named Joan, the type who wore headscarves and talked in an overly-exaggerated posh accent, calling everyone “darling,” and that, “but essentially one of the nicest women you’d ever meet in your life.” According to Luke, she had no enemies, no ex-lovers with any grudges, or certainly none that would want to hurt her, at any rate, and her only relations lived in California now, an elderly aunt and her womanising son.

 

“Everyone liked her,” he finished. “And then the night before last, she went out to some actor’s reunion thing at...” He snapped his fingers, thoughtfully.”That theatre in Covent Garden.”

 

Hannah looked up. “The Donmar?”

 

“That’s the one,” Luke nodded. “Didn’t come back. The wife and I are starting to worry about her.”

 

“She’s a nurse, is she absolutely sure the woman just didn’t have an accident?” Sherlock cut in, bluntly.

 

Luke looked surprised that Sherlock had deduced that but nodded. “She’s checked the hospital records, nothing. We’ve tried calling, emailing, nothing. It’s like she’s vanished off the face of the Earth.”

 

Hannah jerked her head up again as Sherlock opened his eyes. “Interesting,” he muttered. “Mental note, Hannah, check if anything strange happened at the Donmar that night, strange lights or whatever.” Hannah nodded and finished making notes. Sherlock closed his eyes and thought again. His phone beeped and he sighed. “Hannah, pocket.” Hannah looked at him in surprise. “Top pocket!” Sherlock added, hastily, feeling her shift uncertainly towards his trouser pocket.

 

“Well, give me a break, Sherlock, I’m new to this!” Hannah sighed, digging his phone out and checking it. “Lestrade.”

 

“What does he want?” Sherlock asked, although he already knew the answer.

 

“Come to Knightsbridge, urgent. Woman disappeared, and then the address,” Hannah read back.

 

“Figures,” Sherlock muttered, throwing open the taxi door as they pulled up finally outside the correct row of houses. “Pay the man, Lewis,” he added, clambering out.

 

After a beat, Hannah glanced at Luke. “I think he meant you,” she said, apologetically, before hurrying after Sherlock, leaving a very bewildered client to pay the driver. The police were already all over the house, there was yellow and black police tape cordoning off the entrance, although that didn’t stop Sherlock from simply ducking under it, nor her from following him.

 

“Sher-” Lestrade cut himself off as he blinked in surprise. “Hello, Hannah, what are you doing here?”

 

“It’s a long story,” Hannah smiled.

 

“It’s a bet,” Sherlock corrected her, blandly, stepping past Lestrade and into the living room.

 

“He and the Doctor kind of had this idea about me and John swapping places for a bit,” Hannah told Lestrade in an undertone. “See if we can hack living each other’s lives.”

 

“Oh, you mean like-?”

 

“Life-Swap, yes,” Hannah agreed.

 

Lestrade dug his hands into his pockets and turned to see Sherlock already observing the carpet through his magnifying glass. “I take it you’ve been filled in already?”

 

Hannah nodded and walked over to Sherlock. “And I’d say our source was telling the truth, no one’s been in here in the last day or so, save for us.”

 

Both men frowned at her.

 

“What makes you say that?” Sherlock asked.

 

“The dust.” Hannah rubbed her foot against the carpet for emphasis. “Only a thin layer, one day old. Trust me, you can’t pull the wool over my eyes when it comes to dust, the amount of time I’ve spent cleaning it.”

 

Sherlock actually looked impressed, for once, before he fixed his expression into a neutral one and hm’d “Yes, I was wondering when you’d reach that conclusion, Hannah,” and went back to studying the room at large.

 

Lestrade caught her eye and mouthed “Well done,” before stepping into the room. Hannah felt very proud of herself. “What do you think?” Lestrade asked. “Should we send someone over to check out the Donmar?”

 

“Well, obviously,” Sherlock sighed, irritated.

 

“I can do that!” Hannah piped up. “I know one of the people on the front desk there, George. And if I remember rightly, Wednesday’s his day in.”

 

“Excellent,” Lestrade nodded. “I’ll go with you.”

 

“Oh, you don’t have to,” Hannah began.

 

“Hannah, it’s Lestrade or Anderson,” Sherlock clipped in, getting to his feet and tucking away the magnifying glass.

 

“Fair enough,” Hannah agreed.

 

“Well?” Lestrade prompted, waiting for Sherlock’s verdict.

 

“Our client’s telling the truth, that’s a first,” Sherlock replied, immediately closing his eyes and searching through his Mind Palace again. “Now shut up a minute, I need to think.”

 

Lestrade and Hannah kept quiet, watching him concentrate hard on whatever he was searching for, and then abruptly the door banged open as Anderson stumbled into the room.

 

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Sherlock groaned.

 

Lestrade shot his Forensic Officer a glare but before he could say anything, Anderson jerked a thumb back over his shoulder.

 

“Case closed, Inspector, she’s here.”

 

Sherlock’s eyes flew open and Hannah gaped at him. Only Lestrade remained impassive as he demanded “What are you talking about, Anderson?”

 

“See for yourself,” Anderson answered. “She’s wondering why she can’t get back into her own house.”

 

Sherlock crossed to the window and pulled back the blind. Hannah and Lestrade crossed to join him, to see Luke standing by the front door, talking to a large woman with short clipped blonde hair and a headscarf, dressed in a multi-coloured silk blouse over white jeans and brown boots.

 

“Where’ve you been?” he was asking. “Lynda and I thought, well, I don’t know, something had happened to you?”

 

The woman, Joan, laughed. “Bless you, Luke, I’m fine. Are you sure you’re alright?”

 

“What the..?” Muttering to himself, Lestrade went out of the room.

 

Anderson glanced at Hannah and grinned. “Hi. So...”

 

“Yes, thank you, Anderson,” Sherlock interrupted, hustling him out of the room by the shoulder.

 

“What? Hey! Sher-!”

 

Sherlock promptly closed the door on him and spun to face Hannah. She sighed. “So...case dismissed, then?”

 

“Oh, no, Hannah, quite the opposite,” Sherlock replied with a broad smile. “Case just got extremely interesting.”


	3. Oz Specs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Tardis pitches up again in Baker Street, Sherlock and the Doctor decide to have a little fun...Wife-Swap Style!

“Can I ask you something?” John asked.

 

“Fire away,” the Doctor grinned, busily tapping the co-ordinates (the correct ones this time) into the Tardis console.

 

“All this travelling back to the past, doesn’t that ever change history?” John ventured. “I mean...aliens in Victorian times and stuff; and you turning up in this thing, technology that’s not going to be invented for years and years yet, doesn’t that, you knew, screw things around a bit?”

 

“Only a little,” the Doctor replied. “I’m a Time Lord, and when it comes to changing the laws of time, I know what I’m doing. There was this one occasion when me and my friend Donna went to Pompeii on the day Vesuvius erupted. Well, as you know, the entire city was buried beneath the lava and ash for centuries, and every person was killed.” John nodded. “I was all set to go, knowing that if I saved everyone, it would cause a paradox and tear time apart, but Donna begged me to save someone, even if I couldn’t save everyone from that fate, to save someone, even if it was just one person, a dog, a slave, anyone. And I went back and saved one family. Of course, history will never know,” he added, “because it was never recorded that that happened, so only Donna and I, and now you, know that one family survived Pompeii.”

 

John nodded. “I think I understand. You can change it a bit, but not too much.”

 

“Exactly,” the Doctor agreed. “You see, John, there are fixed points in time where things are just meant to happen, the Titanic sinking, Tutankhamen dying young, both World Wars, because if they didn’t, they would seriously alter events in the future. If someone went back in time and stopped World War One, for example, there would be people alive years later who weren’t meant to be and that could cause a paradox.”

 

John raised his eyebrows. “Have you ever made something like that happen before?”

 

“No, but a friend of mine did once,” the Doctor replied, “and the universe was very nearly swallowed up by Reapers. Which is why it pays to be careful.” As he said this, the Tardis console suddenly gave out its usual grinding and scraping of gears that signified it was landing. The Doctor grinned and turned to John. “So, John, ever ridden an elephant?”

 

XXX

 

Hannah wasn’t sure what she wanted to do more: help Sherlock solve this mystery, call the Doctor or get something to eat. However, the only choice she currently had was to opt for the former of these three options, since she and Lestrade were currently standing outside the Donmar Theatre. In a way, she was glad he was here; extra muscle and all that, plus it meant she didn’t have to lie to anyone about why she was actually there, with an actual DI standing right beside her.

 

Tucking her hands into the pockets of her jeans, she glanced at him and grinned “Well, it makes a change from running away from aliens.”

 

Lestrade grinned back at her. Like everyone else in Sherlock’s small circle of “friends,” not that Sherlock would ever admit to having any, he had a bit of a soft spot for Hannah, even if she did hang around with a madman who owned a blue box that was bigger on the inside than the out. “Yep, welcome to my world.”

 

Together they went into the theatre. It was odd, Hannah reflected, how some things changed over time and others didn’t. The Donmar looked exactly as it had done the first time she had stepped foot inside it, at a younger age, back before all the mess with her family. Pushing that memory to the back of her mind, she smiled as the old man at the desk squinted at her through his glasses.

 

“Bless me, if it isn’t Hannah Waters? How are you?”

 

“Hi, George, I’m fine,” Hannah replied, politely, turning to Lestrade. “This is a friend of mine.”

 

“Detective Inspector Lestrade, Scotland Yard,” Lestrade added, flashing his police badge. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

 

“Oh?” George looked surprised. “Joined the Force now, have you, Hannah?”

 

“If only,” Lestrade replied, causing Hannah to look at him in surprise. “I believe there was a get together of some kind here the night before last?”

 

“Oh, yes, the _Blithe Spirit_ reunion,” George replied, sitting up a little straighter. “Thirty years since it was first done here, you know, with Joan Cox playing Madame Arcati.”

 

Lestrade took out a notebook and pen. “You were working that night, then?”

 

“Yes, sir. Mary was supposed to, but she phoned in sick, so I said I’d cover for her.”

 

Hannah transferred her hands from her jeans pockets into her jumper pockets, and frowned when she felt her fingers brush against something smooth. Then, remembering what it was, an idea occurred to her. Neither Lestrade nor George noticed as she slipped quietly into the main theatre itself. As she had expected, it was empty, although she could hear some people moving about in the technician box, but she’d had enough experience in such scenarios with the Doctor to know how to talk her way out of a situation should the need arise, so she didn’t worry too much about being caught out somewhere she oughtn’t be.

 

Pulling out the green sunglasses the Doctor had souped-up for her after a trip to Storybrooke had ended with them running for their lives in the Emerald City of Oz, she put them on. Something about someone suddenly disappearing for a day and then reappearing again as if nothing had happened had all the familiar feelings of alien abduction about it, and something told her that there had to be a clue lurking around here somewhere that the cleaners must have missed somehow. The Doctor had had the idea of rewiring her Oz Specs, as she called them, so that they could detect hidden alien devices or matter, although they didn’t always work when seeking aliens in hiding, since a lot of aliens likes to assume human appearance in some way or other and that created a barrier between the glasses and their alien-ness, but she still found them useful from time to time.

 

Now in the theatre, Hannah smiled to herself as they picked up something underneath the row of seats, flowing with a brighter green tinge than anything else she could see through the emerald tinted glass. Crouching down, she fished it out and frowned. It looked like a sliver of nail, or claw, about three inches long. There was something else too, she noted, and she fished that out too. It was a petal, dark red and spear-shaped, dried up with age. It looked familiar somehow. With another thoughtful frown, she tucked both into her pocket and got to her feet. Maybe Sherlock could help her shed some light on both of these.

 

She made her way back into the reception area just Lestrade was finishing up making notes.

 

“Sorry I can’t be of more help,” George was saying. “But them’s the facts, as my old father used to put it.”

 

Lestrade nodded and closed his notebook. “Thanks, it’s a start at least,” he replied, glancing at Hannah. She shot him an innocent expression and then realised he was waiting to see if she had anything to add.

 

“There’s not been anything odd happening around here lately, has there?” she ventured, remembering that both the Doctor and Sherlock would make sure not to miss even the smallest detail that could be useful in solving this puzzle. “I mean, not here, specifically, but Covent Garden, or nearby.”

 

George thought very hard before answering and then shook his head. “Not as far as I know, Hannah. Been all quiet on the western front lately.”

 

They left the Donmar and turned in the direction of the nearest taxi rank. Hannah shot a glance over to where the turning at Seven Dials was situated, hoping that her flat hadn’t come into any mischief whilst she had been away from it. After spending so much time in the Tardis, she sometimes forgot that she had her own home to go back to once all the travelling with the Doctor was over and done with, whenever that might be.

 

“I might not be as observant as Sherlock, Hannah,” Lestrade cut into her thoughts suddenly, “but I can tell when someone’s not standing next to me anymore. Did you find anything?”

 

With a smile, Hannah produced her finds. “They’re alien, that much I know, but question is where from?”

 

Lestrade took in the size of the claw sliver she had found. “Hostile?”

 

“Most likely, although it sounds like they haven’t made an attack yet.” Hannah thought for a second. “You should probably call UNIT. They can keep an eye on things.”

 

Lestrade nodded. “Miss Stewart gave me their number last time, in case of emergencies, she said.”

 

Hannah smiled. That was so like Kate, always taking extra precautions to defend the Earth, just like her Father. The Doctor had accidently taken the Tardis back to UNIT once during a time when Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart had still been alive, and although the Doctor had been preoccupied in trying to fix whatever had gone wrong inside the Tardis, Hannah had met the man in charge of the UNified Intelligence Taskforce, or the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce as it had been back then, before its name had changed. He had come across as a good and caring man, in her opinion, a little headstrong maybe when it came to defending the Earth but only because he cared about it enough to want it not taken over by anything alien. In a lot of ways, she decided, his daughter was very like him.

 

“You do that,” she said as they piled into the taxi together. “I’ll show these to Sherlock, see what he makes of them.”

 

XXX

 

Sherlock sighed as finally removed himself from the microscope he was using. Over where she was collecting her files, Molly looked over at him, wondering tentatively whether she should ask what was irritating him so much.

 

“Well, that’s disappointing,” Sherlock muttered, picking up the slide and examining it, his mind hitting a mental block. Where did he go from here?

 

Feeling he might have been talking to her, even if it was just to show off his superior skills, again, Molly ventured “What is?”

 

“Matching fingerprints,” Sherlock replied, “and that means matching DNA, which in turn means that a case that started out as a seven has now dropped down to a miserable three.”

 

“Oh.” Molly hesitated and then ventured “Coffee? I was going to-”

 

“You know the way I take it,” Sherlock cut across her, leaning back and entering into his mind palace.

 

Molly left the room, feeling dispirited as usual. Nothing much had been happening around London lately that she could really help him with. Inwardly she wished for an alien invasion, like the last attempted one; there she had been able to make herself more than useful and even Sherlock had seemed quite impressed with her.

 

But now...

 

She made her way into the tiny kitchenette as the double doors just down the corridor from her swung open. Hannah hurried as fast as she could to the room she had been directed to, the room that Sherlock was using at the minute. Something about this whole thing excited her; perhaps it was from hanging around with the Doctor too much, but she did feel slightly superior to the great detective in this instance, after all, aliens were her department whereas solving mysteries were his.

 

“Hello, Hannah,” Sherlock greeted her bluntly without opening his eyes as she opened the door.

 

Hannah frowned. “How did you know it was me, Sherlock? I could have been anybody.”

 

“Because you have a very distinctive footfall, even if you don’t notice it,” Sherlock replied, opening his eyes.

 

“Of course,” Hannah muttered, reaching into her pocket. “Anyway, I’ve found something.”

 

“Well, that makes one of us,” Sherlock sighed, holding up the two slides for her to see. “What do you make of these?”

 

“They’re fingerprints,” Hannah said, shrugging. “So?”

 

“They are identical fingerprints, Hannah, i.e. from the same person, one set taken from Joan Cox’s flat, found on an unwashed glass, the other taken from the woman herself. I had hoped we might be looking at some form of alien substitution, but since the DNA is the same-”

 

“Well, that doesn’t prove anything,” Hannah interrupted.

 

Sherlock shot her a look. “What?”

 

Hannah seated herself on the edge of the table, swinging her legs. “The Doctor once told me that a lot of aliens can manipulate their DNA, or rewrite their biology in order to appear human. It’s a painful process, but sometimes they can do it. Or, if it’s a shapeshifter like a Zygon, or a clone of a person made by Sontarans or whoever, they’d have the same DNA as the person they’re imitating anyway.”

 

Sherlock shot her an irritated scowl and began examining the fingerprints again. “Well, I wish you would have told me that before I’d started, Hannah! You could have saved me a lot of time!” Hannah opened her mouth to argue but was cut off before she could start. “So, what have you found?”

 

Shaking her head, Hannah pulled out her alien clue and held them up for him to see. “And before you say anything, Sherlock, they _are_ alien. I checked with these.”

 

She held up the Oz Specs.

 

Sherlock examined the sliver of claw under the microscope. “Broken,” he muttered, “result of a struggle, or possibly some other kind of hurried movement. What aliens do you know of with claws this long, Hannah?”

 

Hannah thought about it. “Well, there’s Krillitanes, the last time I saw them they had long claws; or Primords, or Lycanthropes, or Koquillions, or Slitheens, or Blathereeens, well, anything for Raxicoricofallapatorius, or Haemevores, or the Sisters of Plentitude-”

 

“So, all of them, then?” Sherlock cut in.

 

“Well, no not _all,_ just...most,” Hannah finished, lamely.

 

“Well, that narrows it down a bit,” Sherlock snorted.

 

“Hey, I’m doing my best!” Hannah exclaimed, throwing up her hands in exasperation. “God, you’re like the Doctor sometimes!”

 

Sherlock shot his head up at once. “Take that back.”

 

The door opened before Hannah could say anything and Molly walked in with a cup in her hand. She looked surprised and then smiled. “Hannah.”

 

“Molly!” Hannah quickly sprang off the table and ran over to hug her friend. “Hi! I didn’t know you were here!”

 

“I didn’t know you were here either,” Molly laughed, and then looked from Hannah to Sherlock. “What’s going on?”

 

Hannah shot Sherlock a look. “You’ve not told her?” Then, she grinned at Molly. “He and the Doctor had this mad idea that me and John should try and live each other’s lives for a bit.”

 

“For a bet,” Sherlock added, eyes back on his microscope.

 

“I didn’t know you gambled,” Molly replied, raising her eyebrows.

 

“Yeah, you do know that the Doctor’s not going to be able to pay you?” Hannah added, hands on her hips. “Travelling in time and space doesn’t exactly pay well.” She quickly turned back to Molly, adding “Anyway, I’ve only been here half a day and he’s already roped me into a mystery which could turn out to be connected to something alien-”

 

“Only we don’t know what because Hannah’s unable to narrow the list down any lower than nine,” Sherlock interrupted.

 

Hannah rolled her eyes as Molly giggled. “Not Cybermen or Weeping Angels this time, then?” she asked.

 

“No,” Hannah grinned. “Subtlety’s not really the style for either of them.”

 

“Well, you should come ‘round for coffee later,” Molly added, brightly. “I’m not doing anything once I’m done here.”

 

“Hm, evening with Molly or evening with Sherlock?” Hannah pretended to weigh up her options with her hands, raising the “Molly” option higher than the “Sherlock” one. “Count me in!”

 

“I can _hear_ you, you know.” Sherlock sounded rather affronted, and looked even more offended when both women giggled. Molly put the cup down in front of him and took her leave, after giving Hannah her address.

 

Hannah glanced at the cup and folded her arms. “You take advantage of her too much, Sherlock. One of these days it could be someone else getting you coffee, and then where would you be?”

 

“Sending Mycroft to reinstate Molly Hooper here,” Sherlock replied. “He can do that with his contacts.”

 

Hannah gave him an amused look as she hopped back onto the table. “And you say you don’t have feelings for her.”

 

“Because I don’t, Hannah, now can you just drop it?” Sherlock sighed, clearly irritated by this time. Really, though, he ought to have known by now that Hannah wasn’t the type to give up easily, being twenty three years old and rather persistent.

 

She folded her arms. “I’ll bet you a tenner that I can make you think twice about what you just said to me using just two words.”

 

Sherlock glanced at her. “Two words?”

 

“Two words,” Hannah insisted, reaching into her bag and holding up a crumpled ten pound note.

 

Sherlock frowned and turned his attention back to the microscope. “Is that fair on you since you’re out of work?”

 

“Buy me lunch and we’ll call it even,” Hannah replied, coolly. Sherlock glanced at her again and she smiled. “The Doctor and I ended up in a gangster’s club once during the St Valentine’s Day Massacre. I know how to gamble well, Sherlock Holmes.”

 

Sherlock took a deep breath, sensing that she wasn’t going to give this up, and reached for ten pounds of his own. “This had better be good, Hannah.”

 

“Well, say it again, so I can get in the right frame of mind,” Hannah said.

 

Sherlock fixed her with an impassive expression, looking her straight in the eyes. “I don’t have any feelings for Molly Hooper.”

 

Hannah leaned forwards and said, in her most seductive, most knowing tone “Yeah. Right.”

 

Sherlock looked at her in surprise, surprise that it had actually worked, those two words had sent him mentally arguing with himself that he didn’t have any feelings for Molly whatsoever, one side stoutly saying just that whilst the other side was shouting things like “But then again...” at him. Hannah tried hard not to laugh at actually seeing the great Sherlock Holmes, world’s only consulting detective, the man who had faced down Weeping Angels, Cybermen and whistling bullets with no fear whatsoever, actually looking _lost._

 

Wordlessly, Sherlock held out the note to her.

 

“Thank you,” Hannah smiled, sweetly leaping off the table. “Come on, I’m starving.”

 

“I don’t eat when I’m working, Hannah,” Sherlock managed to say as she reached the door.

 

“Fine, I’ll eat and you can sit in your Mind Palace, then,” Hannah replied, jerking her head at the door. “Come on, I didn’t have breakfast this morning, remember?”

 

Once again, Sherlock could see no other way out of this but to go along with her. Picking up their clues, he shrugged on his coat and followed her out of the morgue, quickly taking the lead as they passed through the doors, all the while suddenly wishing the Doctor would hurry up, return to Baker Street and take Hannah back into the realms of time and space again.

 

Preferably for a very long time.


	4. Three Emails

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Tardis pitches up again in Baker Street, Sherlock and the Doctor decide to have a little fun...Wife-Swap Style!

“Stop it, Hannah.”

 

Hannah glanced up and then sighed. “Sherlock, you can’t even see what I’m doing.”

 

“I can tell you’re twirling a pen between your fingers and it’s distracting,” Sherlock replied, without opening his eyes.

 

Hannah sighed, heavily, and put down her pen. “Sorry, I was going to actually write something down, but I figured the scratching of pen on paper might put you off,” she muttered, bitterly.

 

“Actually, I find the sound of someone writing a lot more soothing than the sound of someone just sitting idly doing nothing, Hannah,” Sherlock responded.

 

Hannah sensed it was useless arguing, so she leaned back in her chair instead and thought for a minute. They had had lunch, during which time Sherlock had managed to identify their waiter as an online gambler with a different girlfriend each week and a serious dental hygiene problem, the woman at the next table as a compulsive liar with an allergy to strawberries, two cats, a sister with a history of drug use and a father being treated for leukaemia, and an Emo-type three tables down as a suicidal musician dedicated to a cult that worshipped vampires but which was really just an online role-playing game fleecing money out of unsuspecting teenagers. Each diagnosis had left her more than a little impressed. Now, however, they were back in Baker Street to give Sherlock room to concentrate, or rather “process,” he had called it, since he referred to his mind as “hard drive of information” and Hannah was feeling a little useless just waiting for him to finish.

 

Presently she decided to venture, “Alright, can I be a nuisance?”

 

“You’ve already excelled yourself in that department so far, Hannah, so I don’t see why not,” Sherlock replied.

 

“Thank you very much, Sherlock,” Hannah sighed.

 

Sherlock chuckled and then opened his eyes. “Well?”

 

“Do you think John would mind if I used his laptop?” Hannah asked.

 

Sherlock shrugged. “Do you know his password?”

 

Hannah hadn’t thought of that and she sighed. “Alright, maybe I can get to the library before it closes-”

 

“Highly unlikely, since their clocks are always twenty two minutes faster than they ought to be,” Sherlock interrupted, blandly. “His password’s arsphenamine, all lower case.”

 

“Arsphenamine?” Hannah repeated, with a frown as she picked up the laptop from where John had left it down the side of the chair and opened it up. “Is that some kind of medicine?”

 

“It was a drug invented in 1910 as the first cure for syphilis,” Sherlock reeled off. “I suppose he thought I wouldn’t guess that.” Hannah shrugged and tapped in the password. Sherlock watched her, carefully, and then finally asked “UNIT or Torchwood?”

 

Hannah glanced up at him in surprise. “Sorry?”

 

“Who is it you’re sending an email to; UNIT or Torchwood?”

 

Hannah felt her jaw drop. “Wha-how-?”

 

“You’ve got the clues and the notes about the case out in front of you, which means you’re obviously thinking about it a lot. We’ve already established something alien is going on because of those glasses the Doctor gave you.” Hannah resisted correcting him about where the Oz Specs had really come from. “So it makes sense that you want to talk to someone who might be able to help in that department, who might know more about this than you or who can tell you what those clues mean. That narrows it down a bit. But you can’t be emailing the Doctor, because he doesn’t have a laptop of his own and John’s won’t be able to connect with the Tardis computer. You could be sending an email to your own laptop for the Doctor to pick up on, but there’s no guarantee he’d get it, and I don’t buy that you’d do that anyway when it’s blatantly obvious you don’t trust the Doctor with your laptop because you’re paranoid he might modify it or take it apart like he sometimes does with the Tardis iron. So, you must be emailing someone else, someone whom you know would be likely to be sitting in front of a computer all day, and who might be able to help solve this mystery, which narrows it down to two parties: UNIT and Torchwood.” He raised his eyebrows at her. “Which one?”

 

Hannah closed her mouth in surprise. “Wow,” she managed to say. “Just...wow.”

 

“Well?” Sherlock pressed.

 

“You’re right,” Hannah said, calmly. “I don’t trust the Doctor with my laptop at all. That’s why I’ve hidden it in the library archives on the Tardis, filed under “D” for “Do Not Touch of You Will Die.”

 

“UNIT or Torchwood?” Sherlock pressed.

 

“Well, both,” Hannah replied, “and to someone else too.” Sherlock looked interested when she said that, so she elaborated. “The Doctor has a friend he used to travel with, Sarah, she’s a journalist...turned alien-crime fighter after all her travelling with the Doctor, and she’s got two computers that might be able to help; Mr Smith and K9.”

 

Sherlock scowled. “Please don’t tell me that one’s shaped like a dog?”

 

“Yep!” Hannah grinned. “And he’s fast, efficient and very, very cute...for a computer.” Sherlock didn’t look impressed, so she went on “Although, I think in this case Mr Smith might be more useful; he’s a Xylok, so he can hack into anything. I’m sure he can run a scan on these things better than UNIT but there’s no harm trying them all, right?”

 

“Xylok?”

 

“Oh, the Xyloks were a crystalline race that crashed into Earth as a meteorite about sixty million years ago, according to the Doctor, anyway. When Sarah found out that one she had could communicate with her laptop, she plugged him into a great big super-computer in her attic and called him Mr Smith.” Hannah smiled at Sherlock’s slightly bewildered look. “She uses him to save the Earth now and again.”

 

Sherlock just raised his eyebrows at her again before leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes again. Hannah did her best to be quiet as she tapped the outline of her email into Word before deciding it looked alright and then sending it to the three recipients already listed in her Email Address Book.

 

It ran thus:

 

_Cc: Kate Stewart, Captain Jack Harkness, Sarah Jane Smith_

_Hello, it’s Hannah, and I need some help._

_At the minute, I’m staying with my friend Sherlock Holmes in Baker Street, and we’ve come across some clues to a mystery that we’ve managed to confirm as “alien” only we don’t know which race they belong to, although we have managed to narrow it down to some kind of shapeshifter._

_I’ve attached photos of the clues we found at the Donmar Theatre in Covent Garden: in case they come out grainy, the first is what looks to be a sliver of a large claw and the second is a dried petal from some kind of plant._

_Any ideas?_

_Thanks,_

_Hannah xxx_

Propping her chin onto her hand, Hannah wondered inwardly whether she would regret sending Captain Jack Harkness an email signed with kisses, and then decided that it couldn’t be any worse than what she was currently doing now, tiptoeing around a high-functioning sociopath who was liable to go off like a rocket at any given minute if she said or did the slightest thing that might put him off solving this mystery.

 

A huge part of her suddenly realised just how much she had come to rely on the Doctor, and the Tardis, for answers. That frightened her, after all, she wouldn’t travel with them forever, one day she was going to have to leave and live her life.

 

She pushed that thought to the back of her mind as she logged off John’s laptop just as Sherlock suddenly said “Eleven minutes.”

 

“Sorry?” Hannah asked.

 

“How long you have to get to Molly’s flat before it can be counted as showing up late,” Sherlock elaborated.

 

“Oh, yeah, I’d nearly forgotten,” Hannah exclaimed, springing off the sofa. “Where’d I put my phone?”

 

Without waiting for an answer, she made her way into her bedroom. Sherlock leaned over and picked up the sliver of claw again. Hannah had very thoughtfully, after all those times she had watched CSI and other such shows, thought to put it inside a plastic sandwich bag so that it wouldn’t get lost, and the same with the flower petal. He ran through the aliens with claws she had listed earlier in his mind, although he didn’t really know enough about them to make a logical conclusion.

 

Honestly, where was the Doctor when he was actually _needed?_

 

“Hannah, that list of aliens you gave me earlier,” he said as she came back into the room, pulling her rucksack over her shoulders. “How many of those can actually shapeshift?”

 

Hannah frowned, thoughtfully. “What were they?”

 

“Krillitanes, Primords, Lycanthropes, Koquillions, Slitheens, or Blathereeens, well, anything for Raxicoricofallapatorius, Haemevores, and the Sisters of Plentitude,” Sherlock reeled off.

 

Hannah raised her eyebrows as she thought. “None,” she admitted.

 

Sherlock shot her a dark scowl and flopped back into his seat. “Well, that narrows it down a bit,” he muttered, bitterly.

 

“I’m just trying to help,” Hannah protested. When Sherlock just ignored her, however, she sighed and went back into her room. A second later, she came back, holding up a large black ring-binder file. Sherlock glanced at her.

 

“What’s that?”

 

“My Monster File,” Hannah replied, holding it up. “I made it a while ago, although it’s still not complete, because I keep adding to it every time I find out anything new, and there are probably still aliens out there I’ve not met yet. But it might help.” She held it out to him. “It’s got information on every monster the Doctor and I have ever faced together, so far.” Wordlessly, Sherlock took the file from her. “Just don’t rearrange it, please; it’s all in alphabetical order.”

 

Satisfied that she was leaving him with something to do, she turned to leave when Sherlock called her back.

 

“Your coat’s on the back of the chair.”

 

Hannah frowned, glancing at him. “It’s not that cold out.”

 

“It’s five degrees and dropping,” Sherlock countered.

 

Hannah shrugged. “I don’t feel the cold much, Sherlock.”

 

“Alright, but if you end up being the next body on Molly’s slab due to hypothermia, don’t expect me to attend your funeral,” Sherlock muttered, flicking open the file.

 

“God,” Hannah sighed, “you sound like my-!” Then, she stopped herself and said “Like the Doctor!” before sweeping out of the room.

 

Sherlock blinked and then, even though there was no one around to hear him make the brilliant deduction, let out an “Oh!” before going back to reading the file.

 

Hannah, meanwhile, shook her head as she left the flat. “Get it together, Hannah,” she muttered, opening the front door and stepping out into the street. Around her, the few people who had dared venture were wrapped up to their ears as they made their way to their chosen destinations, but she ignored their looks of surprise that she was out dressed in only a sweatshirt and jeans, no coat or even a scarf, as she made her way to Molly’s flat.

 

Molly grinned at her as she opened the door. Hannah found it a little odd, actually, seeing her without her usual white labcoat, after all the previous two times they had met, she had been wearing it.

 

“Hi, come on in,” Molly smiled, stepping back to let her inside. Then, she frowned. “Are you not cold?”

 

“Nah, not really,” Hannah shrugged, thanking her 2.1 degree that she was able to, not lie as such, but skirt around the truth with the same skills as her good friend Loki, otherwise she would never have been able to pull that statement off. She stepped inside the small but cosy flat and looked around. “Oh, I think I like this place better than 221B, at least it’s tidy.”

 

Molly giggled as she closed the door. “Oh, Toby, get down,” she added as the cat suddenly leapt up onto the arm of the sofa and began to rub against Hannah’s leg, purring like a steam engine. “Sorry, you’re not allergic, are you?”

 

“No, it’s alright,” Hannah smiled, stroking Toby’s head, cooing as he closed his eyes and rubbed against her fingers contentedly “Oh, I think the Doctor would really like you, yes I do.”

 

Molly smiled. “It’s funny, he really likes Sherlock too, even though Sherlock’s more a dog person.”

 

“Aw!” Hannah cooed, and then “Wait, Sherlock’s been to your flat?”

 

Molly sighed. “Well, only when he wants something. Coffee?”

 

“Please,” Hannah replied, sitting down. Toby came over and curled up in her lap. Hannah stroked him, thoughtfully. “You know,” she called into the kitchen, “I had a friend once, back in Performing Arts-”

 

“Oh, yes, a _friend?”_ Molly called back, teasingly.

 

Hannah laughed. “No, seriously, hear me out. I had a friend, who was a boy, and he had a flat mate, who was a girl, and every time he ever had any kind of problem, he always ended up going to her, even if she was busy and she always dropped everything to help him through a problem. It was weird, though, even though he had tones of other friends and he was really close to his family, he always went to her. And then not long before I started travelling with the Doctor, I heard they’d got engaged.”

 

“Oh.” Molly came back into the room, looking slightly confused, and carrying two cups of coffee.

 

Hannah smiled and took the proffered cup. “My point is that sometimes men think they want one thing from women when they actually want something else. Like him thinking he just wanted her advice and friendship, but really what he wanted was her. And I think it’s the same with you and Sherlock.”

 

Molly blushed. “No, I don’t think Sherlock can like anyone in that way. I mean, he always seems to ignore all the other women around.”

 

“Except you,” Hannah pointed out.

 

“Well, we’re friends, sort of.”

 

“Molly, the man gives you insults which he thinks are compliments. He’s a mixed up detective who doesn’t really know what he wants.” Hannah took a sip of coffee, thoughtfully. “You know, I think he might like you a bit more than he lets on, and that scares him, because maybe he’s always thought of himself as asexual.”

 

Molly thought about it and then shrugged. “I did ask him for coffee once, but he thought I meant did he want me to bring him one, so I sort of haven’t tried since.” Hannah said nothing as she drank, although Molly noticed the small smile on her face. “What?”

 

“Nothing,” Hannah replied, thoughtfully. “I was just wondering what his reaction would be if you stopped showing your interest in him.”

 

Molly looked surprised. “What do you mean?”

 

“Well, I mean, if you had someone else to be interested in,” Hannah replied.

 

“You mean like a date?” Molly shook her head. “That never works, he always points out their flaws and we end up breaking up.”

 

“But what if he didn’t actually get to meet your date this time?” Hannah grinned.

 

Molly thought about it, and then leaned towards her. “Alright, you’ve got my attention.”

 

Scooping Toby off her lap, much to the cat’s distaste, Hannah leaned forwards in her seat. “Well...”


	5. Alien Latin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Tardis pitches up again in Baker Street, Sherlock and the Doctor decide to have a little fun...Wife-Swap Style!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Couldn't come up with a better chapter name, sorry!)

“You have automatonophobia,” Sherlock said when Hannah walked back in.

 

Since he was sitting in the dark, Hannah jumped with a yelp of “Jesus!”

 

“No, Sherlock, but I’m flattered you see the resemblance,” Sherlock quipped.

 

“Very funny,” Hannah muttered, flicking on the lights. “Reminds me of the time I shouted that out at the first Christmas.”

 

“What?”

 

“Nothing. What are you sitting in the dark for?”

 

“It wasn’t dark when I closed my eyes,” Sherlock retorted.

 

Hannah rolled her own eyes before going over to the sofa. “How’d you work out I’ve got automatonophobia?”

 

“Wasn’t difficult. You’ve put pictures or at the very least sketches of all the “monsters” beside their information, except for the ones called Autons. Now most would just think that’s because you couldn’t find any, but why not sketch them when you’ve done that with other pictures you’ve clearly not been able to find? Added to that, according to what you’ve written, it would be very easy for someone to take a picture of an Auton since unlike the Weeping Angels they don’t move faster than the speed of light, so pictures of them must exist somewhere; conclusion? You don’t enjoy looking at them. Automatonophobia.”

 

Hannah looked at him and then sighed. “Don’t rub it in.”

 

“Everyone’s scared of something, Hannah,” Sherlock began.

 

“I know, I wouldn’t be human if I wasn’t,” Hannah finished. “The Doctor says that all the time.”

 

Sherlock just smiled when she said that.

 

“How much have you read?” Hannah asked, pulling off her boots.

 

“I got as far as Bilgesnipes,” Sherlock sighed, pressing his fingertips together, “which, by the way, you forgot to mention earlier, since they have claws.”

 

“I didn’t forget, I just knew it wouldn’t be necessary, since unlike a lot of aliens, they’re anything but subtle and tend to trample everything in their path. Trust me, if a Bilgesnipe was on Earth, we’d know about it,” Hannah replied.

 

“Did Loki teach you that?”

 

She frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“Whilst you were “in the library,” Sherlock smirked.

 

Hannah sighed. “Alright, look, the only reason I kissed him was because our timelines weren’t in synch, _he’d_ first met me when he was a child but at that point in _I’d_ only just met him and he told me that when he was a child I always used to kiss him on the forehead right before we’d leave, and since he was an adult and I was an adult, I just thought “Oh, hell, why not,” and yes, we kissed, just once, no spark, no fireworks and we’re still friends now, end of.”

 

Sherlock blinked at the end of her rant, as if he couldn’t quite believe someone so small could talk that much. “So when did you learn about Bilgesnipes?”

 

“Oh, that was way before any of that,” Hannah replied, getting to her feet. “And now, since I’ll probably be plagued with dreams about Asgard and all the other monsters from the Nine Realms if I don’t, I’m going to bed.”

 

Sherlock furrowed his brow as she picked up her boots.

 

“Before you do, Hannah, tell me, what did you and Molly spend three hours and forty seven minutes talking about? And if you give me the answer “Girl Stuff,” which I can tell you’re about to,” he added as Hannah was about to reply, “I’m going to have to scream.”

 

Hannah thought for a second and then smiled. “Girl Stuff, Sherlock. Goodnight.”

 

She stifled a giggle at the loud groan of frustration he let out as she shut the bedroom door before yawning and flopping down onto the bed. Several hours later, however, she was woken by the sound of her mobile. Without even bothering to check the caller ID, she picked it up with a tired “Hello?”

 

“Hello, Hannah!” came back a rather chirpy voice she knew very well indeed.

 

“Doctor!” Hannah almost sprang right off the bed in her excitement. “Where are you?”

 

“Back in the Tardis, but we’ve just been taking on King Hassan of Morocco at polo!” The Doctor winced slightly as he rubbed the small of his back. “It’s not as easy on camels, it turns out!”

 

Hannah began to laugh. “You and John, on camels?”

 

“He’s certainly got a better seat than me,” the Doctor grinned. “We’re off to the Golden Age of Hollywood next!”

 

“Well, careful you don’t run into the Missus, Doctor,” Hannah teased, and he laughed.

 

“What about you? Solved any interesting mysteries?”

 

“Well, actually-” Hannah began, but a sudden bleeping at the Doctor’s end of the phone cut her off.

 

“Whoops! Tardis is trying to tell me something! Sorry, Hannah, I’ll talk to you later!” he gabbled.

 

“Be careful with her,” Hannah said.

 

She could almost see the Doctor giving her one of his looks. “I’m _always_ careful, Hannah!”

 

Hanging up on her end, Hannah reflected that, in the Tardis, “later” could mean anything between now and two years consecutive time. She lay back down again, wondering just what the Doctor’s guess about these new aliens would be.

 

She was rather rudely awoken the next morning too by Sherlock thrusting open the bedroom door and tossing her coat on top of her. “Get dressed,” he said, before exiting as swiftly as he had come in.

 

Hannah blinked. “Oh, hello, Sherlock, yes I slept fine thank you, and yourself?” she muttered, sarcastically, before clambering out of bed. “Bloody hell.”

 

“Hurry up!” Sherlock called from the living room.

 

Hannah stumbled about, trying to get her jeans on. “Can I ask why-whoa, Sherlock!” she added, throwing her coat over herself as he came back into the room.

 

“Oh, for God’s sake, Hannah, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” Sherlock sighed.

 

“Turn your back,” Hannah snapped. “What’s going on, anyway?”

 

“Someone else has disappeared, and now this case is really getting interesting,” Sherlock replied, pointedly turning away from her, figuring that she would dress faster if he did so.

 

“Someone went missing at-?” Hannah squinted at the clock. “Quarter to ten in the morning?”

 

“No, at ten to eleven last night. I’ve just been talking to one of his friends.”

 

“Let me guess,” Hannah sighed, wriggling into her jumper. “They lost him last night in a crowded bar and he’s not been answering his phone?”

 

“Oh, no, he answered his phone,” Sherlock replied, “only to then end the call about ten seconds later without having said anything to the one who was trying to talk to him. They’ve not been able to get hold of him since.”

 

“And they’ve tried his place? Girlfriend’s? Boyfriend’s? Second cousin’s once removed?” Hannah asked, busily tying her hair back.

 

“Actually, he lived with his parents and apparently they swear blind they haven’t seen him since he went out, but we’re going to find out whether or not they’re lying.”

 

“Why would they be lying?”

 

“Who knows? Do you have to talk so much?”

 

Hannah blinked. “Sorry, _Doctor!”_

 

Sherlock shot her a glare. “Come on if you’re coming.” Hannah growled under her breath as he darted out of the room, but she ran after him. “And bring the laptop,” Sherlock added.

 

“What? Why?”

 

“Because you don’t have an IPhone.”

 

Hannah frowned but snatched up the laptop anyway. Seconds later, they were in a taxi heading for Oxford Street, and she figured she might as well check her emails whilst they were at it.

 

“You owe me for this,” she muttered to Sherlock, “this is the second time I’ve left the house without breakfast since I moved in with you.” Then, she opened the laptop on her lap. She had one email from Kate, and one from Jack, but nothing from Sarah.

 

Kate’s ran like this:

 

_Hello, Hannah, thank you for your email. We’re currently looking through our archives for a possible match for the sliver but Osgood had attached a list of alien plants which we’ve found a match for so far. Meanwhile, keep your eyes and ears open and keep safe, anything else that comes up send it to me straight away. Kate._

Jack’s was a little more friendly:

 

_Hey, Hannah, I’m afraid I’ve been scratching my head about both of these all night. So far I’ve come up with nothing, although I’d like you to remember that the last time the Krillitanes invaded Earth, they had claws. Rule nothing out. As for the plant, all I can say is be wary of anything in people’s homes that looks suspicious, some alien plants can adapt to look like normal Earth plants, but these are usually the more deadly ones. I’ll keep digging around and see what I can find. Jack xxx_

She clicked open the list that Osgood had sent her and shook her head with a sigh.

 

“Let me guess, they’ve got nothing?” Sherlock guessed, in his Mind Palace yet again.

 

“No, they’ve got about fifty matches for the dried up petal, but it’s in Alien Latin,” Hannah replied, “which means I can’t understand a bloody word of it.”

 

Sherlock snorted. “Figures.”

 

“Wonder if can-” Hannah was interrupted as the taxi pulled up outside the correct house and she quickly shut the laptop. “Never mind.”

 

“Tell me later,” Sherlock muttered.

 

They clambered out and found the door immediately opened by a somewhat rotund looking man who instantly ushered them inside.

 

“Mr Sherlock Holmes, it’s an honour-” he began.

 

“Yes, I know,” Sherlock cut in. “You’ve still not heard anything from your son, is that correct?”

 

“Yes, sir,” the man replied, looking a little hurt that he had been cut off so harshly.

 

“I’m going to take a look at his room,” Sherlock stated, before making his way up the stairs and leaving Hannah and the man alone in the hallway.

 

“Don’t mind him,” Hannah smiled, opening the laptop again. “What’s your son called?”

 

“Tommy,” the man replied, “uh, Jones, and I’m Ed.”

 

“Nice to meet you,” Hannah said, tapping notes into Word. “I’m Hannah. So, Tommy went missing last night, Sherlock was saying, and none of his mates can find him?”

 

Ed nodded. “Been a strain on his mother and me, he’s never done this before.”

 

“Is she here?” Hannah asked.

 

“In the kitchen,” Ed nodded, indicating the way.

 

Hannah followed his gesture and smiled at the similarly large woman filling the kettle at the sink. “Hi, you must be very worried.”

 

The woman nodded and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. “It’s not like him to worry us all like this. I keep thinking he’s going to come waltzing back in at any minute, telling us he’s lost track of time or...”

 

Her voice faltered.

 

“Why don’t you sit down?” Hannah asked, gently. “I’ll make a cup of tea.”

 

By the time she had done so, Sherlock was back in the room, looking rather impatient to leave. “Mr and Mrs Jones, if your son isn’t back by tonight, I suggest you call the police and start planning for his funeral, the former being exactly what his friends should have done before calling me in. Either he’s been murdered or abducted by aliens, which really amounts to the same thing, but rest assured we’re going to get to the bottom of it. Come on, Hannah let’s go.”

 

He said all of this almost within the same breath.

 

Hannah blinked. “What, now?”

 

“Yes, now, didn’t you hear me?”

 

Hannah quickly jumped to it, shooting an apologetic “Sorry,” over her shoulder to the Jones’s before following Sherlock out of the room.

 

“Oh,” Sherlock added, pivoting around as they reached the door, “and the next time your son mysteriously goes missing, leave his room exactly as it was before he left it, thank you.”

 

With that he stalked out of the house, muttering something about “small minded idiots.”

 

Hannah offered the bewildered couple a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, we’ll look into it, put our thinking caps on.” Then she hurried after Sherlock. “What was all that about?” she asked, catching up with him.

 

“Idiots,” Sherlock muttered, tucking his hands into his coat pockets. “Clearing that half-eaten chip sandwich away.”

 

“Chip sandwich?” Hannah repeated, bewildered.

 

“The one their son stashed under the bed. I could tell by the grease mark and the distinct smell of vinegar lingering in the room.” He quickened his pace, reeling off his train of thought. “A son of people that size must weigh about the same, hides food under his bed where he hopes his parents won’t find it; why? He’s cheating on a diet. The fact it was half-eaten means he left in a hurry, about the time his friends came to pick him up so they could go out drinking, suggesting he was eager to leave. I also found this.” He thrust something into Hannah’s hands and she stopped to examine it. It was a crumpled piece of paper with what looked to be three separate web addresses, two of which she didn’t recognise, the latter of which was followed by a single word: Linda.

 

“Who is Linda?” Sherlock thought aloud. “And what do these websites have in common?”

 

“I have a feeling we’re about to find out,” Hannah said, hailing for a taxi.

 

“So, that’s two disappearances in two days,” Sherlock enthused in his usual cool manner, rubbing his hands together. “And so far Torchwood have nothing.”

 

Hannah blinked at him. “How’d you-?”

 

“Use your head, Hannah, you’d have said something if they knew what those clues meant. Even _Anderson_ could work that one out.”

 

They both climbed into the taxi.

 

“So, where now?” Hannah asked.

 

“Back to Baker Street,” Sherlock replied. “You haven’t had any breakfast yet and your stomach rumbling will drive me mad if you don’t pacify it soon; meanwhile I shall be busy trying to solve the meaning behind this mystery and the connection between our two missing people.”

 

“Don’t forget the first one came back,” Hannah reminded him as he pressed his fingertips together and closed his eyes, his typical Mind Palace stance. “Maybe Tommy will too.”

 

“Hm,” Sherlock mused. “Yes, one has to ask one’s self what all that was about.”

 

Hannah glanced at the list in her hand. “My Invasion Blog,” she muttered. “I’m sure I know that site.”

 

Sherlock said nothing and she assumed he was in his Mind Palace, so she left him to it. About two minutes later, however, he stated “Judging by the rapidness of his handwriting, they’re all very important to him. Why do you think he’d be researching something in a hurry?”

 

Hannah thought about it. “Maybe he saw something alien? Something he thought was urgent to-”

 

“What were you going to say earlier, anyway?” Sherlock asked, abruptly opening his eyes.

 

Hannah frowned. “What?”

 

“Earlier when we got here; you said “I wonder if I can...” what?”

 

Hannah thought back and then remembered. “Oh. I wondered if I could get onto the Outernet through John’s laptop, but then I remembered all the hassle the Doctor went through to hook mine up and realised that if it was hard for a Time Lord, it would be near impossible for a human.”

 

Sherlock blinked. “And the Outernet is a wider branch of the Internet, am I correct?”

 

“Correct,” Hannah said, “except instead of being the World Wide Web, it’s the Universe Wide Web. You can find anything on there. I keep getting adverts for discount offers at a cafe’ on a planet called Kataa Floko...”

 

She broke off, seeing that Sherlock had his eyes closed again and a very concentrated look on his face. With a sigh, she leaned back in her seat and tried to ignore the hollow feeling in her stomach as the taxi made its way back through the thick of traffic to the well-stocked fridge at 221B Baker Street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Sorry I took so long to update. Because of all this, and my own impatience, I’ve decided the next WhoLock related story will be Part 2 of the UK Avengers series – first part being Loki’s Angels, so it’s advisable you read that first – although I may end up updating a chapter of the next planned WhoLock adventure since it finally reveals Hannah’s secret to her friends, and, chronologically, by the time the UK Avengers comes up, the Doctor, Sherlock and John are used to seeing her special skills by then) 
> 
> The Websites (all web pages fictional):   
>  www.myinvasionblog.com.uk  
> www.investigatinglondon.co.uk  
> www.defendingtheearth.co.uk 
> 
> (The former two websites are found/mentioned in the Doctor Who episode Love and Monsters – the second is fictional since I couldn’t find the real name for it – and the last one is first mentioned in the episode Rose. I have this theory that all Doctor Who episodes are linked through the internet, you know, other characters can find webpages mentioned in previous episodes even if they never appeared in them, so I thought I’d make use of them again in this fanfic)


	6. "Shattered Ones (1)"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Tardis pitches up again in Baker Street, Sherlock and the Doctor decide to have a little fun...Wife-Swap Style!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's going to be in two parts, so here's part one - you're probably wondering why? I don't think I even have a reason, but that's the way it's gonna be, ok? Ok. 
> 
> (Also don't expect any mystery in this bit, it's basically Hannah and Sherlock attempting to bond a bit)

Truly, it didn’t take much to get under Hannah’s skin. Granted, it could take something seriously tiny to make her angry, or frustrated, in fact she possessed when the Doctor had coined “a glass bottle mind.”

 

_“Look at it this way, Hannah,” he had said to her, when attempting to describe what he actually meant, and to demonstrate he had used an empty bottle of Fentiman’s Ginger Beer that had been lingering about in the recycling bag doing nothing. “Here’s a glass bottle.” He put it down on the table in front of her. “And it’s perfectly fine. Let’s say it’s on a ship table during the calmest weather imaginable, and it might bob up and down gently in rhythm with the waves, but it’s not going anywhere, right?”_

_“Right,” Hannah agreed, “unless someone picks it up.”_

_“Well, yes, but no one’s going to,” the Doctor quickly agreed, before moving to the other end of the table. “But suddenly, there’s a storm, and as the pressure builds and the waves toss higher and higher – watch!” He rocked the table to demonstrate what he meant and Hannah watched as the bottle tilted, rolled off the table and smashed onto the kitchen floor. “Your mind is like that bottle, Hannah; rock the boat a little and it-”_

_“Smashes open?” Hannah finished._

_He grinned at her. “It’s not the same anymore. One second you’ll be completely calm, the next thing you know your anger’s pouring everywhere, like that ginger beer would be if there’d been any in the bottle.” He pointed to the remains of it on the floor. “The good news is, though, a glass bottle can be repaired, even if you can’t get the drink to stay in it anymore. You see?”_

_“I think so,” Hannah replied, picking up the dustpan and brush. “You ought to be a psychiatrist, Doctor, you make it a lot more fun than most I’ve met.”_

And that then had started the Doctor into a rant about how he had once met Freud and how the man had been, in the Doctor’s own words, “very critical about the colour of my bow tie,” and Hannah had laughed at that.

 

Except she didn’t feel much like laughing right now.

 

Getting angry, Hannah had always found, was one thing, it was very easy to make her angry. Getting upset, however, was another, because it did take rather a lot to break through her rather thick skin and tough girl outer layer and make her want to cry.

 

Which was why Sherlock was slightly confused as to just how he had managed to do just that.

 

It had all started because he had become rather frustrated about not being able to find anything significant to the case as of yet, beyond the two disappearances of different people, one of whom still hadn’t turned up yet, the claw sliver – which no one had been able to give Hannah a match for yet, and the dried up petal. Hannah had sent the “Alien Latin” list from UNIT to Jack in the hope he might be able to transcribe it for her, and then Sherlock had got frustrated in his usual grumpy way, and Hannah, being the stubborn young girl she was had retaliated and that had led to a full blown session of sniping, during which Sherlock had made the rather cutting, and significant, comment that had finally propelled Hannah to hurtle into John’s room and begin to stuff her things into her rucksack as quickly as if there were Daleks hot on her heels.

 

_“And you think I’m going to listen to someone who blocks out the rest of the world just because her parents didn’t tell her she was adopted?”_

Sherlock followed her into the room without comment. _That’s it, Hannah, just run away from all your problems as usual, that’s your answer to everything._ He wondered whether he ought to say that, and then decided not to. It would only make her worse.

 

“You know, Sherlock, I think Anderson had it right about you after all!” Hannah shot at him, her anger a cover up for just how upset she really was, a way of stopping her from bursting into tears. “You _are_ a bloody psychopath!”

 

“High functioning sociopath, Hannah, do your research,” Sherlock scoffed.

 

“Really? Because a psychopath is an unstable and aggressive person, which _you_ seem to be!” Hannah fired back, fastening her rucksack with vigour.

 

“So, that’s it, then?” Sherlock scowled. “You’re giving up? Running away as usual?”

 

He was right; saying it did make things worse. Her brown eyes clouded with something, confusion, no, bewilderment, and before he could even begin to think about how to whitewash over what he had just said, she was off again. Best to just stand where he was and take it until she ran out of steam, he decided.

 

“I just can’t be here if you’re going to be like this!” Hannah exclaimed. If it wasn’t for the fact that the situation was rather serious, it would have been quite funny, Sherlock noted, this small girl squaring up to someone of his build with more fight in her than a heavyweight boxing champion. “You know, this is why people can’t cope with being around you, Sherlock, if you keep calling them things like “annoying” and “ridiculous” and all the other bloody insults you keep throwing out at them! Well, perhaps if you started being a bit nicer to people instead of hurting them at every opportunity, you’d find them less annoying and ridiculous, but no! Everyone has to tread on eggshells around you, Sherlock Holmes, the great consulting detective, for fear of upsetting you in case they get their hearts broken, you ungrateful, big-headed, self-absorbed, unfeeling-! Oh!” She threw her hands up in the air. “I can’t even say the word I want to say, my Grandmother would die of shock and then turn in her grave!”

 

Sherlock waited until she had finished and then asked “Feeling better?”

 

With a sigh, Hannah lowered her arms and took a step back from him, rubbing her forehead. Then, to his surprise, she threw up her fist and punched him in the face. For someone her size, she packed a wallop, Sherlock noted, as he staggered backwards against the doorframe, she’d clearly done this before.

 

“A bit,” Hannah answered him, flexing her hand. “Did that hurt?”

 

“Not really,” Sherlock replied, rubbing his cheek.

 

“Pity,” Hannah sighed, and with that, she shoved past him and ran for it without looking back. Once outside, she began to walk aimlessly, not even noticing where she was going, only aware of the fact that there was no one around to see as she shook out her hands in frustration, flexing her fists and sending a few ice stalagmites coming from the ground at her feet. With an annoyed sigh, she folded her arms and made her way down Crawford Street, not really caring where she ended up as long as it was far away from Sherlock.

 

For now.

 

She only turned back when she felt the first spatters of rain on her arms and remembered that she hadn’t brought her coat, humming to herself as she went.

 

_“There’s a light, there’s a sun, taking all the shattered ones to the place we belong and his love will conquer all...”_

 

XXX

 

“Molly, you’re a woman.”

 

Molly blinked at the blunt statement, which sounded oddly worded even for Sherlock. “Yes, but I assumed you already knew that, Sherlock.”

 

He ignored the jibe; after all, he wanted to get this over and done with as quickly as possible. It wasn’t often he turned to other people to advice, but since Molly was actually the closest thing he had to a female ally, and he could hardly turn to John or Lestrade or even his own brother for a thing like this, well, here he was again, at Bart’s. “If you had a male flatmate who somehow managed to upset you, how would you expect him to apologise?”

 

Molly frowned. “Well, I suppose that would depend – wait. You’ve upset Hannah?”

 

It was Sherlock’s turn to frown. “Yes, somehow to the point where she hit me, but I would have thought that much was obvious.”

 

“She hit you?” Molly’s eyes widened and then, to Sherlock’s complete surprise, she began to laugh. “Hannah?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“As in...Hannah? Small, twenty three year old, travels-with-the-Doctor Hannah? Hit you?”

 

Rather irritated by her giggles, Sherlock knew there was only one way to get her to stop that would work. “Molly,” he said, sternly.

 

She sobered up at once. “Sorry, sorry.” Taking a deep breath, she tried to think about the situation, although the idea of someone as small and wiry as Hannah Waters punching Sherlock Holmes still threatened to make her laugh. “Um, well, I suppose since she’s just your flatmate for now, and you’re going to have to live with her, well, maybe a nice gesture, like, I don’t know, tea or something, or buying her a bar of chocolate, something small to show you’re sorry.”

 

Sherlock moved away from her, and then promptly spun back to face her. “What do you mean she’s _just_ my flatmate for _now?”_

 

Molly looked confused. “What? Well, you know, when the Doctor comes back, she won’t be anymore...”

 

“But why say it like that? Why use the word “just?”

 

“Did I?” Blushing like fire, Molly turned back to her cadaver. “I don’t know...”

 

“Yes, you do, Molly,” Sherlock told her.

 

He wasn’t going to let this go, Molly realised, and she scolded herself for being so thoughtless and not noticing what she was even saying sometimes when she was around him. Taking a deep breath, she replied “Well, I just meant, you know, she’s just a friend, and that if she weren’t, if she were, say, interested in you in a more romantic way, or something, she might expect something more than just a small gesture. I don’t notice I’d said it in a weird way, I’m sorry.”

 

She heard him move, and then, he startled her by murmuring in her ear “Thank you, Doctor Hooper, you’ve been most helpful,” before kissing her cheek. Turning, she watched him walk out of the morgue with a sweep of his coat, hands deep in his pockets, ever casual. He had done that before to her, she remembered, when he had apologised to her that dreadful Christmas after insulting her in front of everyone, kissed her cheek like that. Feeling a sense of tingling pride, she went back to her work, giggling at the notion that if he tried something like that when apologising to Hannah, he would more than likely be punched by her again.

 

XXX

 

When Sherlock came in, Hannah was sitting with her head buried in a book and it was only when he cleared his throat, she realised he was a) standing beside her chair and b) holding out a packet of Garibaldi biscuits.

 

“What’s this?” she asked, with a frown.

 

“This is a packet of your favourite biscuits which the Doctor never seems to store aboard the Tardis, according to you anyway,” Sherlock replied, in his usual blunt way. “I realise I might have upset you earlier and I apologise.”

 

Hannah blinked at him. “Sorry, Sherlock Holmes saying he’s sorry? Are you ill or something?”

 

“Contrary to popular opinion, I can swallow my pride and admit when I’m wrong, infrequently though it might happen,” Sherlock stated, proffering the biscuits again.

 

Hannah managed a smile. “Go on, then, I’m sorry too, Sherlock,” she said, taking them from him and opening them. “Thanks.” Sherlock sat down in his chair opposite her and she held one out to him. Before he could start up his usual “Don’t eat when I’m working, digestion slows me down, Hannah, you know that,” line she added “Live a little.”

 

Sherlock took the biscuit from her. “Aren’t you going to ask me how I worked it out?”

 

“What? The mystery?” Hannah’s eyes widened. “Don’t tell me you’ve worked it out already?”

 

“With so little information to go on? Don’t be daft, Hannah,” Sherlock scowled.

 

Hannah managed to keep back a laugh at the way he bit firmly into the biscuit, just like the Doctor when he was frustrated or angry. “Well, what do you mean?”

 

Sherlock gave her a look as if it should be obvious. Hannah frowned. The Doctor often did that too. When she didn’t seem to get it, he sighed, swallowed his mouthful and exclaimed “The adoption!”

 

“Oh!” She frowned again. “Alright, how did you work it out?”

 

“Your phone.” Sherlock leaned back in his seat to elaborate. “I’ve noticed that you’re one of those persons who assigns different songs as ringtones for different people, so that you know who it is calling before you pick up.”

 

“And to avoid accidently picking up to those numbers trying to sell double glazing or whatever,” Hannah added, nodding, and then realising she had interrupted the detective in mid-flow, added “Sorry, go on.”

 

“You use ELO music on yours, Hannah,” Sherlock went on.

 

“Best band ever,” Hannah chipped in.

 

“And I’ve noticed that for most of the songs, you pick up the phone. But whenever the song Evil Woman plays, you don’t pick up, meaning you’ve assigned that tone to someone you don’t want to talk to. You’re a young woman, now currently jobless, living alone, and who knows how long it’s been consecutive time since you started travelling with the Doctor, who might be calling you that much, and who might you not want to talk to? The answer lies in the fact that you live alone, and that in all the time I’ve known you, you’ve never once mentioned your parents to the Doctor. When we were fighting the Cybermen up in Big Ben, you didn’t phone them to check that they were alright, which is what most women in your position would have done, especially if they still lived in the same city as their parents, which you do. But that wasn’t because you don’t care, more because it wasn’t the first thing to leap to your mind at that particular moment in time, which tells me that your family aren’t currently at the forefront of your mind, because you’re annoyed with them about something, something which has happened recently-”

 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Hannah interrupted, holding up a hand. “Why is it necessarily a recent thing?”

 

“Because no sane person would hold onto a grudge for years,” Sherlock began.

 

Hannah frowned. “The Doctor would.” Sherlock gave her a look. “Point taken, go on.”

 

“Besides that,” Sherlock added, “earlier whilst you were on your phone, I noticed the reflection of it in the window. When you sit at a certain angle in that chair, you can see all sorts of things in the reflection, it’s how I worked out John’s password.” Hannah raised her eyebrows but didn’t comment. “You were looking at a photograph on your phone of your graduation from university, and you were standing with your siblings-”

 

“You don’t know that,” Hannah interrupted, “they could have been my friends.”

 

“With that much resemblance between them all? And the fact that you always claim the Doctor was your first real friend. You wouldn’t look that friendly and familial with people who were just your classmates, even in a graduation picture, Hannah.”

 

“Alright, I’ll give you that,” Hannah sighed. She was beginning to see where Sherlock was coming from. “So you noticed that I don’t look much like them?”

 

“Two siblings with grey eyes and one with hazel, and then one with brown?” Sherlock shook his head. “Might have been a mix up at the hospital when you were born, but that doesn’t explain your irritation every time your parents phone you, so that leaves the only other option that fits – you were adopted and you’re annoyed that they didn’t tell you.”

 

Smugly, he watched Hannah struggling to find the right words to say. “Wow...” she managed to murmur, finally. “You got all that from a ringtone and a picture?”

 

“Not exactly difficult, Hannah, even Anderson could have worked it out,” Sherlock shrugged, modestly.

 

Hannah took a deep breath. “I’m only annoyed that they didn’t tell me because most adopted kids get told they’re adopted when they hit eighteen and then they can make up their own minds about it, and stuff. But my parents didn’t tell me. I only found out when I was trying to find my passport among my Dad’s papers and came across my birth certificate, along with the adoption papers.”

 

“How long ago?” Sherlock asked.

 

“Two years,” Hannah admitted. “I moved out that night, went and crashed at my cousin Elton’s until I could get a job and a flat of my own. I haven’t looked back since.” She fixed Sherlock with an appealing look. “Please don’t tell the Doctor.”

 

“I don’t have to,” Sherlock replied, calmly. “I think he already knows.”

 

Hannah sighed and then, thoughtfully, she got to her feet. “Fancy going for a drink?”

 

“What, now?”

 

“No, at four o’clock in the morning, Sherlock, yes now!”

 

“No need for sarcasm,” Sherlock muttered.

 

Hannah smiled. “Come on, Sherlock, I know you’re not much of a social drinker, but I hate drinking alone. And if you’re with me, I’m less likely to get hit on by some sleaze. And you owe me,” she added when Sherlock still looked reluctant to move.

 

Sherlock frowned. “For what?”

 

“You’ll see,” Hannah smiled, pulling him to his feet. “Come on.”


	7. "Shattered Ones (2)"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Tardis pitches up again in Baker Street, Sherlock and the Doctor decide to have a little fun...Wife-Swap Style!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise if it seems like there's too much Hannah and not enough Sherlock in this chapter, but I wanted to write a bit more about her backstory before we move on to solving the mystery.

The Volunteer was noisy but not crowded, and Hannah crossed her fingers in the hope it would stay that way. Something told her that taking Sherlock into a crowded bar would not be a good idea. Mind you, something also told her that John would say taking Sherlock into a bar full stop wouldn’t be a good idea, but after being reminded of her real reasons for leaving home, cutting off contact with her immediate “family” members and eventually deciding to travel with the Doctor in the first place, Hannah needed a drink, and something she was certain about with Sherlock was that he probably never kept anything stronger than wine in the flat, and even that would probably have been John’s doing, either for cooking or entertainment purposes.

 

Gin, Sherlock guessed, would probably be Hannah’s tipple, and he smiled to himself when she leaned on the bar and ordered a Tom Collins. She rolled her eyes when he only ordered a mineral water “since I’ve no desire to be out of my head whilst thinking about an important case, thank you very much, Hannah,” but didn’t press the matter.

 

“You know, this whole thing would move a whole lot faster if Osgood would just get back to me quicker,” she sighed. “And I haven’t heard anything from Sarah, not even an Out of Office reply or anything. Feel free to tell me if I’m boring you,” she added, hand on hip, seeing that Sherlock had his phone out.

 

“You’re not boring me,” Sherlock responded, blandly, “although you could have easily made the conversation marginally more interesting by cutting it down after you mentioned Sarah.”

 

Hannah exhaled, deciding not to start up another row. “What are you doing?” she ventured when Sherlock didn’t even comment on her exhalation, she had half expected him to ask her not to do that please, because it was very distracting and he was trying to concentrate, or something along those lines at any rate.

 

“Looking up those websites, or trying to,” Sherlock muttered, rolling his eyes, “because the WiFi in here is slower than Anderson’s brain on a good day.”

 

Hannah stifled a laugh. “I’ll tell him you said that.”

 

“Don’t bother, I was planning to do that myself,” Sherlock replied. Hannah was quiet a minute, enjoying her drink whilst he scrolled down his phone a moment, and then added “It’s obvious what he was looking for.”

 

“Who, Anderson?” Hannah frowned.

 

“No, Hannah, Tommy Jones, keep up!” Sherlock scowled.

 

In mid-gulp, all Hannah could do in response was made an indignant face and spread her hands helplessly before swallowing. “Excuse me for not being able to read the way your mind works, Sherlock Holmes!”

 

Sherlock ignored her. “Alien invasion, like you said, but why? What was it he saw? And why these specific websites?”

 

“That’s easy,” Hannah interrupted. Sherlock glanced at her and she sighed. “Anything related to UNIT or Torchwood on the internet is locked. You tap it into a search engine, you’ll get website lists but try and click on one and all you get is a pop up message saying “Unable to perform task” or something like that. Believe me, I’ve tried. The only way you can get on anything from UNIT is via their own computers, and even then it’s all password protected. But sometime ordinary people-”

 

“Make blogs chronicling their own study of alien invasions, yes, thank you, Hannah, I’ve worked that out already,” Sherlock interrupted, still scrolling. He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Why won’t that sandwich leave me alone?”

 

Hannah frowned. “Sandwich? I thought you didn’t eat when you were working?” Sherlock gave her a look that made her sigh. “Don’t look at me like that, Sherlock, that’s the same look the Doctor gives me when he tries to explain quantum physics and I still don’t get it.”

 

“More fool the Doctor, then,” Sherlock sighed.

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hannah bristled.

 

“I’m talking about the chip sandwich that Mrs Jones so carelessly discarded even though it’s common sense not to meddle with a crime scene,” Sherlock went on, again ignoring Hannah’s last remark. “You’re a cleaner, I’m sure you noticed how untidy that room was.”

 

“I was downstairs, if you remember, Sherlock,” Hannah reminded him, testily, “although if it helps, I did get a good look at their kitchen, and I doubt that anyone in that family is a cleaning freak.”

 

“Fine, then tell me why someone who’s so lax about tidiness that she doesn’t bother with her own kitchen would remove a chip sandwich from her son’s room and throw it away whilst leaving the rest of the room looking like, to coin a phrase, a bomb has exploded in it?” Sherlock replied.

 

Hannah thought about it. “Well, she might have been concerned about mould. That stuff can be lethal.”

 

“Hm,” was all Sherlock said, his mind on his phone.

 

Hannah shrugged and left him to it, taking another thoughtful sip of her drink. As she did so, something caught her eye, a half eaten packet of crisps, salt and vinegar flavour, left on the bar and she frowned. That was making her think of something, but what, what? Something to do with eating? The Doctor; he could eat a lot when he put his mind to it, fish fingers and custard, would John know to make that for him if he needed it as brain food, or to carry emergency Jammy Dodgers just in case of a looming Dalek attack, this wasn’t the Daleks, was it, oh, don’t be ridiculous, Hannah, how could it be, this wasn’t their style by any means, and besides how could that woman Joan just disappear and then turn up again as if nothing had happened, alien abduction, mind-wiping, but who was doing it-?

 

“Hannah?”

 

Jumping abruptly at the sound of Sherlock’s voice, Hannah glanced up at him. “Sorry, I was miles away.”

 

“Yes, I know. What were you staring at that crisp packet for?”

 

“I don’t know,” Hannah admitted. “It just made me think of something.” She shuddered. “I don’t know, call it an instinct but something’s telling me that I should have spotted what all this means a long time ago and I’m just being...slower than Anderson.”

 

Sherlock actually chuckled at that. Hannah drained her glass and signalled for another, which made Sherlock raise his eyes at her, questioningly, but he didn’t object, merely went on scrolling and then scowled as the music switched to Linkin Park’s _Numb._ Hannah stifled a giggle and tried to lose herself in the atmosphere of the room, cheerful and warm, typical of an ordinary pub in England, filled with the chatter of locals and the laughter of friends on a pub crawl. Then someone slide up to the bar between her and Sherlock, at which Sherlock looked slightly surprise, and she glanced up and immediately felt her stomach contract with dread. Before she could move, though, as she was planning to, make a break for it before she was spotted, the man grabbed her arm.

 

“Why the hell have you not been answering your phone?”

 

“Get your hand off me, Byron, before I break it, and you know I can,” Hannah hissed.

 

Byron let her go but still blocked her way when she tried to leave. “A simple text to let everyone know you’re ok wouldn’t kill you, Hannah.”

 

“Like you actually care!” Hannah laughed, indignantly.

 

“Actually, I wouldn’t antagonise her if I were you,” Sherlock cut in, although he was only watching the spectacle out of the corner of his eye. “Though she be but little, she is fierce, William Shakespeare, 1590 to 1597, I believe.”

 

Hannah was impressed that a man who had somehow managed to delete his entire childhood knowledge of the Solar System was still able to somehow remember his Shakespeare. Even so, she felt inclined to say “Yes, thank you, Sherlock, I can handle this.”

 

“Sherlock?” Byron looked up in surprise. “Sherlock Holmes?” Sherlock gave him a look. Byron frowned. “Well, how’d this happen?”

 

Hannah scowled, folding her arms. “I don’t see how that’s any of your concern. Or do our parents want to control my friendships as well as everything else in my life?”

 

“I don’t see why you’re taking this out on the rest of us,” Bryon replied, sounding as if he was having trouble keeping his temper in check. “None of us knew about it.”

 

“Just leave me alone,” Hannah sighed, turning back to her drink.

 

“Not until you answer my question,” Byron insisted. “I can understand you ignoring Mum and Dad, but why us?”

 

“Why do you even care?”

 

“I’m your brother.”

 

Hannah had to stop herself from laughing out loud in case she drew more attention to the three of them than they were already getting. “And that makes a difference? When did any of you ever start caring about me? It’s always been “Oh, never mind Hannah, Hannah can look after herself, Hannah doesn’t need any of us around.”

 

Sherlock glanced at Byron, expecting him to deny it, but Byron actually looked slightly guilty. He took a deep breath. “Alright. I’m sorry for ignoring you when we were kids, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. It doesn’t,” he insisted when Hannah gave him a disbelieving look. “I guess...you were always so much better at doing stuff on your own than the rest of us. You were always the independent one, so no one worried as much about you being alright.” He waited. Hannah said nothing, merely looked at her feet. Sherlock furrowed his brow. Whatever it was that Hannah was hiding, and, rather maddeningly, he still hadn’t deduced what that was yet, he suspected that she was hiding it from her brother too, and if she was hiding it from her brother, then she was hiding it from the rest of her family too. Byron sighed, hands tucked awkwardly into his pockets and rocked back on his feet as he glanced at the ground. “I tried to call you heaps after you left. I called Elton too, but he always said you were busy or out.”

 

“I know,” Hannah said, quietly. There was a pause and then she added “You called more than Carmella and Luna.”

 

Fighting the urge to say anything about Hannah’s parents’ choice of names for their children, Sherlock opened up his text message inbox, having decided it was time to abandon the scene before it got too sentimental for him to handle.

 

“Yeah, well, you’re my little sister,” Bryon mumbled, touching her arm. “I wanted to know you were ok.”

 

Hannah raised her eyes to his and Sherlock read there the question of whether or not he was telling the truth. A second later, his phone rang and he quickly walked away from them to answer it. “Lestrade?”

 

Byron dropped his hand and reached for his so far untouched drink. Hannah felt torn between obeying her stubborn pride and giving in and forgiving him. She suddenly wished that the Doctor was around, although she had a feeling she knew what he would say. She could even hear him saying it in her mind.

 

_“Hannah...he’s the only brother you’ll ever have. Hold onto your family. Take it from someone who knows what it’s like to lose them.”_

She took a deep breath and then wrinkled her nose. “Stella? Really?”

 

Byron glanced at her and offered her a sheepish smile. “Kind of grows on you after a while.” Hannah relaxed slightly, letting her guard down for the first time in years. How was she supposed to make small talk with her brother when they had never really been that good at it before? Thankfully, she was spared from being the one to bring up a topic by Byron glancing over his shoulder and asking “So...how _did_ you get to end up drinking in a pub with Sherlock Holmes, then?”

 

“Well, it wasn’t easy,” Hannah admitted and they both laughed, the barrier between them falling down. “I think the only reason he did come was to stop me from nagging at him. He probably deduced everything about you in the first five seconds.”

 

Byron raised his eyebrows. “Seriously? I thought when people said he was that good they were exaggerating.”

 

Hannah bit her lip. “Look, maybe I should have sent the occasional text, but...” She shrugged and hitched herself up onto the nearest bar stool. “It just feels weird.”

 

She finished her drink and signalled for another.

 

“Weird how?” Byron asked.

 

“Well, you know, there’s so many questions, where did I come from, who am I really? And I don’t really think I want to know. I just...” Hannah pressed both palms into her eyes and shook her head. “I need time, you know, this feeling isn’t just going to go away overnight.”

 

“And not after two years?” Byron asked, raising an eyebrow.

 

“Well, it hasn’t yet,” Hannah admitted, downing her drink in one and ordering another.

 

“Are you sure?” the barman frowned, picking up the glass and frowning at it, and then at her, as if he couldn’t quite work out how someone of Hannah’s build could drain it all down like that. “That was your third.”

 

Hannah held up her hands. “I’ll be fine, just don’t let me have another one after that.”

 

Byron watched her, thoughtfully. “Well...you can always talk to me...right?”

 

“We were never any good at talking,” Hannah pointed out.

 

“Only because we never tried,” Byron countered. Hannah sighed. “Look, if you can’t talk to any of us, then, maybe you should try, I don’t know, a counsellor or something.”

 

“I don’t need a counsellor.” Suddenly it struck Hannah just how much she wanted the Doctor there in that moment. The Doctor always knew what to do, he always knew how to put things right. “I have a friend I can talk to.”

 

“Really? ‘Cause he didn’t seem very talkative just now.”

 

“I don’t mean Sherlock.” Byron looked interested and she sighed. “I have a friend who’s a doctor...sort of, he’s good at talking.”

 

That much was true. She stifled a giggle.

 

“Ok.” Byron shrugged. “Just...you know, as long as you’re ok.”

 

“I am.”

 

“Ok.”

 

“Ok.”

 

Byron finished his drink and glanced over his shoulder. “Sherlock’s been a long time, think he’s ok?”

 

Hannah looked around and then groaned as she dragged herself off the stool. “If he’s found something better to do and gone off without me, I’ll kill him.” She quickly finished off her drink and stepped back, unsteadily.

 

Byron caught her arm. “Hannah...”

 

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Hannah insisted, steadying herself.

 

“Are you going to be alright?” Byron frowned.

 

“Yeah, I’m only going over there,” Hannah shrugged, jerking a thumb in the direction of 221B. Truth be told, the gin had gone straight to her legs and was making her feel giddy and giggly.

 

Byron shook his head. “No, I’m seeing you home. I don’t want you turning up dead in the morning.”

 

“Mm, be an easy case for Sherlock, that,” Hannah hummed.

 

Byron wrapped an arm around her and steered her out of the pub. The smell of chips nearby hit them as a couple of idiotic teenagers staggered past, loudly complaining about having too much vinegar and not enough salt. Stopping outside the flat, Hannah frowned and then her eyes widened.

 

“That’s it! I’ve got it!”

 

Byron looked alarmed as she suddenly seized him in a hug and then kissed his cheek. “Oh, Hannah, you’ve definitely had one too many.”

 

Hannah just giggled and caught hold of the doorframe, feeling for the spare key John had given her before taking off with the Doctor. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it before!”

 

Byron rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I’ll text you.”

 

It took Hannah about five attempts to stagger up the stairs, but eventually she made it, and found, to her surprise, Sherlock sitting on the sofa, deep inside his Mind Palace.

 

“You’re drunk, Hannah,” he commented without opening his eyes.

 

“No, I’m not actually, Sher-” Hannah swayed and caught hold of the nearest chair. “Lock. I’m just tiddly. Trust me, if I was drunk, I’d be on the floor already.”

 

“You will be on the floor in a minute,” Sherlock replied, getting to his feet and closing the door behind her.

 

Hannah picked up a scrap of paper from the table, scrunched it up and flung it into the bin. “See?” She pointed. “If I was really tight, I’d have missed.”

 

“You’re still intoxicated enough not to be in your usual state of mind,” Sherlock argued.

 

“Urgh, shut up,” Hannah groaned, flopping onto the sofa. “You sound like the Doctor. Anyway, I think I’ve finally got it.”

 

“What?”

 

“I think I know who we’re dealing with here...”

 

“Who?”

 

“What?”

 

Sherlock sighed. “Hannah...”

 

“Mm?”

 

She was close to falling asleep, Sherlock realised, she was no help to him like this. He sighed again. “I’m going to bed. Get some sleep.”

 

“Alright,” Hannah hummed, drifting to lie down on the sofa. “I love you, Sherlock.”

 

Sherlock froze when she said that, but by the time he had turned back to check whether or not she was serious or whether it was just the alcohol, Hannah was already asleep.


	8. Two Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Tardis pitches up again in Baker Street, Sherlock and the Doctor decide to have a little fun...Wife-Swap Style!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, and we're back. Let's clear up what Hannah told Sherlock last night and move on with the mystery!

When Hannah woke up, the first thing she noticed was that her head felt like a hive of bees and her stomach was churning with the need to get rid of whatever she had been drinking last night. The second thing she noticed was that the flat was unusually quiet.

 

That worried her.

 

“Sherlock?”

 

Staggering to her feet, Hannah rubbed her forehead and tried to remember the exact details of the night before. They were extremely fuzzy, a bit like the Tardis Scanner whenever it was on the blink. Come to think of it, that was often. She stifled a giggle at the thought.

 

Bathroom first, she decided, and then she could look for Sherlock.

 

There was, she reflected later, one advantage to having these cryokinetic “abilities” as she called them, not wanting to call them “powers” since the Doctor was forever reminding her that there was no such things as magic, it was all alien technology and evolution; it made being sick a hell of a lot easier, freezing everything into a compressed lump that could be easily disposed of and a hell of a lot less messy.

 

Her phone beeped in her pocket as she was washing her hands. Squinting at the screen, she noted two text messages, the first of which she deleted without even reading with a mutter of “Leave me alone, Carmella,” and the second of which was from Byron.

 

_8:43 am – Please tell me you’re alright? :s_

She sent off a quick text replying in the affirmative before making her way back into the living room. To her surprise, there was now a large glass of water and two white tablets on the table which she was certain hadn’t been there when she had woken up. So Sherlock was about, then. She swallowed the two painkillers gratefully and padded into the kitchen, where she found Sherlock sitting at the table, once again inside his Mind Palace.

 

“Good, you’re finally awake,” he observed without opening his eyes.

 

Hannah smiled, tiredly, and reached for the kettle. “Thanks for the ibuprofen, Sherlock, that was uncharacteristically thoughtful of you.”

 

“I think I’m coming down with something,” Sherlock responded, bluntly.

 

“Tea?”

 

“No, thank you.” Sherlock opened his eyes and waited until he heard the clink of spoon inside cup before adding “We need to talk.”

 

Hannah glanced at him, at the same time trying to scrape back a few straw hairs that had escaped her plaited bun in the night. “What about?”

 

“Two things that you said last night.”

 

“Oh, God, I didn’t start singing, did I?”

 

“No.”

 

“Good.” Hannah sighed in relief as she sank into a chair beside him. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love singing and people tell me I’m good at it, but sometimes when I’m tiddly it gets a bit loud. Can you imagine? I’d have been evicted from here faster than you could say...something that doesn’t take very long to say.”

 

Sherlock actually cracked the hint of a smile at her lame attempt at a simile although he sounded somewhat disgusted as he repeated _“_ Something that doesn’t take very long to say?”

 

“I’ve just woken up on the sofa with a hangover, Sherlock, give me a break,” Hannah sighed, sipping her tea. “So, go on then, what did I say that’s made you say “We need to talk?”

 

To her surprise, Sherlock hesitated, as if he was uncertain of how to broach the subject. Eventually he stated, perhaps a little faster and certainly more awkwardly than he would have liked, “You said you love me, and while I am flattered, I would have thought that you’d learned by now that nothing’s ever going to-”

 

He broke off as Hannah began to laugh, and really laugh, not just giggle politely, but full on head in her arms, table rocking laughing, and whilst Sherlock was used to being mocked or verbally abused by his peers – Anderson, Sergeant Donovan, his brother Mycroft to name a few – the fact that here was someone who considered herself to be a friend of his was laughing at something serious he had just said caused him to flush in annoyance.

 

“Hannah.” The sternness didn’t have any effect so he tried a different tack. “Oh, very mature, Miss Waters, are you always like this when someone’s trying to have a serious conversation with you?”

 

Hannah made a gesture with her hand that clearly meant “Hold on,” and finally lifted her head up, rubbing her ribs with one hand. “I’m sorry, Sherlock, really, it’s just...” She stifled another bout of laughter and took a deep breath. “I guess even the great Sherlock Holmes can be taken by surprise once in a while.”

 

“Once only, and on a bad day,” Sherlock scowled.

 

She gave him a look. “Sherlock, don’t take this the wrong way, but if we were the last two people on this planet, I’d be more likely to fall in love with a tree.”

 

Sherlock relaxed his guard. “So, that was the four gins talking?”

 

“Four? God, what was I thinking?” Hannah shook her head and then offered him a sweet smile that made Sherlock realise just why Anderson always tried to flirt with her whenever they met. “I’m afraid I love everyone when I’ve been drinking, Sherlock. The Doctor once took me to Hampton Court and after about eight glasses of wine I made the mistake of telling Henry VIII that I loved _him._ The Doctor had to drag me out of there sharpish before I could become Queen Hannah the First and Last of England.” She giggled and Sherlock actually joined her after a second. Hannah propped her hand on her chin, elbow leaning on the table. “What I’m trying to say is, I _do_ love you, Sherlock, but only in the way I love the Doctor, not romantically at all.”

 

“Mm,” Sherlock mused, glancing away from her. “Perhaps one day you’ll both figure out why that is?”

 

“What?”

 

“Nothing. Second thing.” Now that the little tense moment was over, Sherlock had slipped back into his usual clipped, professional manner. “Last night you also said that you had an idea about who’s behind Tommy Jones’s disappearance.”

 

Hannah frowned. “I did?”

 

Sherlock sighed, scraped back his chair and then, to Hannah’s surprised, took hold of her head in both hands, bringing his face intimately close to hers. “Concentrate, Hannah, try and remember what it was last night that made you think that.” Hannah blinked at him. “Every single detail, the slightest thing might help us solve this mystery.”

 

“Well, I usually think a lot better when my friend isn’t holding my head so tightly I’m starting to feel it might come off,” Hannah replied. Sherlock let go of her and she massaged her temples. “Alright, so...we went to the Volunteer. I had a Tom Collins, you just had water, and I was talking about Osgood-ooh! I wonder if she’s emailed me yet!”

 

“Concentrate, Hannah!” Sherlock sighed with a growl.

 

“Right, sorry, so-”

 

Hannah was interrupted by the sound of the door opening and Mrs Hudson popping her head into the room. “Young man here to see you, Sherlock, says it’s urgent.”

 

Sherlock groaned, loudly, and got to his feet. “This had better be an eleven!”

 

Hannah followed him into the living room, still massaging her head, and reached for John’s laptop. By the time she had logged on, clicked onto her emails and discovered that Osgood had indeed sent her a new one, the lad had been shown in. He looked about nineteen years old, thin and clean, although his trousers and open zip-up were definitely old favourites to look at them. His hair was light brown and sticking up in a way that reminded her of the Doctor’s when he had woken abruptly from a nap.

 

“Mr Holmes,” he said at once, immediately plonking himself down on the sofa. “We spoke on the phone the other day. I’m Jason, Jason Briggs.”

 

Sherlock just blinked at him.

 

“You’re going to have to be a bit more specific than that,” Hannah put in, kindly.

 

“Oh.” Jason Briggs looked disappointed. “Well, I’m Tommy’s mate.”

 

“The one who told us about him disappearing?” Hannah asked.

 

“Yeah.”

 

Sherlock shrugged. “You’ve turned up something new for us to work with?”

 

“Well, no, well, sort of, I mean, we’ve turned up Tommy. I mean, Tommy’s turned up, at home, alive and well.”

 

Sherlock and Hannah exchanged a glance.

 

“When was this?” Sherlock asked.

 

“Last night,” Jason replied, eagerly sitting forwards in his seat. “I went ‘round to his place this morning to check how his parents were doing, and there he was. ‘Course I gave him an ear-bashing for not calling me or any of us but he just laughed it off. When I asked him where he’d been, though, he just said he got lost last night, bad trip or something, and his parents backed him up.” He frowned. “But I think he’s lying.”

 

“Yes, you’re absolutely right,” Sherlock agreed. “I’ve seen his bedroom, that’s not the room of a boy who’d even consider trying drugs.”

 

“His parents were always dead set against it,” Jason agreed. “That’s what’s so weird. Before they were always freaked out if we went out together, even if Tommy got home on time and not even tipsy, but now they’re sort of acting like “Oh, well, boys will be boys,” kind of thing. And there’s another thing.”

 

“Oh, yes?”

 

“Well, Tommy wasn’t the most secretive person. He used to tell us everything. Even if it was something awkward or embarrassing or something he thought we wouldn’t believe, he’d tell me at least, I’d get it out of him somehow. Now it’s like...he’s forgotten how to be himself.” He sighed. “I know that doesn’t make much sense.”

 

“On the contrary, it makes perfect sense,” Sherlock replied.

 

“So you can figure out what’s wrong with him? I just want my mate back.”

 

Hannah had a horrible feeling, however, that he wasn’t going to get his mate back, but she pushed that instinct to one side and tried to work out why this scenario felt so familiar to her.

 

“Perhaps,” Sherlock mused, picking up his coat. “Come on, Hannah, let’s go and judge him for ourselves.”

 

“Hold on,” Hannah exclaimed. “I mean, I’m still in yesterday’s clothes-”

 

“No one cares,” Sherlock interrupted, picking up his scarf. “Come on.”

 

Hannah sighed but promptly shut down the laptop and got to her feet.

 

“But what does it all mean?” Jason persisted.

 

“Quite obviously your friend’s been either abducted or substituted by aliens, don’t you read the local papers or are you too busy sleeping with your brother’s girlfriend as well as your next door neighbour to notice?” Sherlock reeled off, briskly, before opening the door. “I assume you can see yourself out.”

 

Hannah offered Jason an apologetic look. “Sorry, he suffers from a disease called acute boorishness and no one’s found a cure yet. But I’m working on it.”

 

“S’ok, I’ve heard worse,” Jason shrugged. “But is he serious about the alien thing? I mean, I know they’ve come to Earth and all before, but...really?”

 

Hannah hesitated. “Well...as they say in the police force, we are currently covering all lines of enquiry.” Then seeing Jason look rather alarmed, she added quickly, “But alternatively there could be a completely logical explanation.” She patted his shoulder. “Why don’t you go downstairs and tell Mrs Hudson that Hannah said you could have a cup of tea?”

 

She hurried down the stairs after Sherlock, who, as usual, was striding ahead.

 

“How’s the head now?” Sherlock asked.

 

“Well, it’s stopped feeling one of the goblins from Labyrinth is dancing about inside it,” Hannah replied. Then, seeing the look of surprise on Sherlock’s face, she added “You’ve never seen Labyrinth?”

 

“Actually, to my deepest shame, I have,” Sherlock replied, before striding on with a sweep of his coat.

 

Hannah sniffed her sleeve and grimaced. “You should have let me have a shower, Sherlock.”

 

“Just wait for it to rain in five minutes, you’ll smell better,” Sherlock replied, with a sly grin.

 

“And I didn’t bring a coat,” Hannah sighed. Sherlock stopped abruptly and she walked into him. “Ow! Now what?”

 

Sherlock whirled to face her. “You’re only worrying about not having a coat because it’s raining?”

 

“So?”

 

“Hannah, it’s three degrees, even the dogs are wearing coats.”

 

She shrugged, feigning casualness. “I just don’t feel the cold like other people do, Sherlock. What’s the big deal?”

 

Sherlock blinked at her and then stepped up closer to her, so close in fact that Hannah had to lean backwards in order to avoid being nose to nose with him. Well, nose to chest at any rate, what with Sherlock being somewhat taller than her.

 

“There’s always something,” Sherlock stated.

 

“Sorry?”

 

“Always something you miss about a person, something small but significant, even when it’s staring you right in the face, you just can’t see it. What is it I’m missing with you, Hannah?”

 

Hannah thought back to the first time they had had an adventure together, that moment in Epping Forest when they had just fought off a pack of Weeping Angels and Cherubs and her abilities had almost got her into trouble with her new friends, almost exposed her secret. Sherlock had been slightly suspicious of her then.

 

She folded her arms and stuck out her chin, defiantly. “Still thinking I’m a puzzle to be solved, are you, Sherlock?”

 

“Oh, I know you are, Hannah Waters,” Sherlock replied, his gaze and tone steady. “And one way or another I’m going to figure it out.”

 

Hannah didn’t say anything, she just met his gaze with her own. After a beat, Sherlock turned and began to stride off again. She jogged after him. “You know, the Doctor did that once. Couldn’t see the obvious answer when it was right in front of him. His friend Rose had to point it out to him in the end.”

 

“And what was it?” Sherlock asked, knowing that she was just going to tell him even if he didn’t ask.

 

“The London Eye,” Hannah shrugged. Hearing Sherlock stop behind her, she turned and smiled “Bonkers, right?”

 

“Completely,” Sherlock agreed, drily, turning up the collar on his coat. “Come on, let’s try and find out just where Tommy Jones disappeared to two nights ago.”

 

“And if he still doesn’t talk?” Hannah asked.

 

Sherlock gave her a look. “Around me he may not need to.”


	9. Getting There

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Tardis pitches up again in Baker Street, Sherlock and the Doctor decide to have a little fun...Wife-Swap Style!

As Sherlock had predicted, Tommy Jones was definitely a boy who had been cheating on his diet. Hannah could tell that right from the beginning, she could practically smell the meat juices he was sweating a mile away. Still, it made her feel a little better about not having had a shower that morning.

 

“I’m going to make this quick,” Sherlock stated, stepping up to him the second they had been introduced. Tommy blinked in alarm as the detective towered over him, reading him all over the way Hannah would normally read the front page of the Daily Telegraph. “What do you remember about disappearing the other night?”

 

“I already told Jason, I just ran into an old mate who does a bit of, well, you know, acid,” Tommy mumbled the word before going on, “and I thought I’d try what he had to offer. Anyway, it’s all a blur, I woke up in the middle of nowhere, lord knows what I’d been doing, no one ‘round me seemed to know.”

 

The sound of, ahem, gas being released caused Sherlock to step back once and glance at Hannah, who threw her hands up defensively.

 

“That wasn’t me, Sherlock, I haven’t even eaten yet.”

 

“Sorry,” Tommy muttered, flushing. “Diets, all the veg does that to you.”

 

“Mm,” Sherlock agreed, although judging by the look on his face, Hannah could tell that he wasn’t buying that one little bit. “What’s the name of your friend who gave you the drugs?”

 

“Why, are you hoping to buy?” Tommy asked, grinning cockily. “Because he ain’t cheap, mate.”

 

“Tell me his name,” Sherlock repeated.

 

Tommy shrugged, thrusting his hands into his pockets, and mumbled “Mark Gibney.”

 

Hannah, who was busy writing all this down in her notebook, interjected quickly “Do you know where he lives, Tommy?”

 

“Don’t know where he’s dossing these days, sorry,” Tommy insisted, shrugging again. “Look, I don’t see how I can be much help, the police have already been and I’ve told them everything I can, there’s not much else I can tell you.”

 

Hannah did her best not to breathe through her nose as there was another break of wind close by, although she couldn’t tell which of them it had come from.

 

Sherlock straightened his collar and spun about to her. “Come on, Hannah, let’s leave these good people to get on with their lives.”

 

She was surprised by his change in demeanour, until she realised that it was just a front to cover the fact that he suspected something far more sinister than just a bad acid trip was going on in the Jones household. She quickly snapped shut her notebook and smiled at Tommy’s parents. “Well, let us know if there is anything else that might help us figure out what happened,” she said, turning to leave.

 

“We will, dear,” Tommy’s mother smiled, putting her arm around the boy’s shoulders. “But we’re just happy to have our son back with us.”

 

Hannah waved as they left the house, before breathing in the icy air with an exclamation of “Phew! That smelled like gone off milk!” Then, she frowned, thoughtfully and sighed. “Oh! I thought I had it for a second there! This is going to drive me mental!”

 

“Is that what happened to you the first time, then?” Sherlock quipped, drily.

 

Hannah rolled her eyes but fell into step beside him instead of taking offence. “So...observations?”

 

“Tommy Jones is lying through his teeth,” Sherlock stated.

 

“About the diet?”

 

“About everything.” Sherlock drew a small plastic bag, the kind that spare buttons on jackets usually came in and dropped something small and fine into it before sealing it up again. “His current attitude is not the attitude of a boy who was previously worried about something, most likely he found someting alien and was trying to research it before he disappeared.”

 

“That would explain the websites,” Hannah realised. “They’re to do with finding alien life, or things connected with them. I knew I’d heard of My Invasion Blog!”

 

Sherlock thrust the packet at her. “Take a look, what do you make of it?”

 

Hannah squinted. “It’s a hair...blonde, it looks like.”

 

“And yet no one in that family is blonde, so where did it come from?” Sherlock asked.

 

Hannah thought. “Perhaps he got lucky the night he disappeared?”

 

Sherlock sighed. “What must it be like in your funny little brain, Hannah? It must be so peaceful not being me.” He shot her a meaningful look. “His shirt was clean, freshly washed, so where did the hair come from?”

 

“Oh...” Hannah frowned and then shrugged, handing the clue back to him. “Trust you to notice that, Sherlock.”

 

“Also, his parents know something and they’re just covering,” Sherlock added, tucking the packet back into his pocket and summoning a taxi. “Did you notice they weren’t overly bothered about their son having been missing for at least forty eight hours with no memory of what actually happened?”

 

“So, Jason was right to be worried, then,” Hannah observed, “especially if what he was telling us about the whole drugs bit was true, Tommy not taking them, I mean.”

 

“Exactly,” Sherlock muttered, opening the door of the taxi. He allowed Hannah to precede him before climbing in and telling the driver “Bart’s Morgue.”

 

“Mm.” Hannah raised her eyebrows. “So you can be polite then, Sherlock? I’m impressed.”

 

“Don’t get used to it, Hannah, I just wanted to avoid the feminist lecture you clearly had prepared for me if I didn’t let you go first,” Sherlock replied, bluntly.

 

“Of course you did,” Hannah agreed, humouring him.

 

Sherlock was quiet all the way to the morgue and Hannah did her best not to make any noise that might potentially be seen as an annoyance on his part, in fact she was just considering taking a nap when the car finally pulled up at its destination and she followed Sherlock into the building. As they rounded the corner, they spotted Molly coming towards them and Hannah, remembering the plan, ran through her lines in her head before their paths crossed.

 

“Hello,” Molly smiled, more for Hannah than Sherlock.

 

“Hey, Molls,” Hannah smiled, rubbing her eyes. “You like nice.”

 

“Oh, thanks,” Molly replied, looking touched at the compliment. “I have a date tonight.”

 

“Oh, with..?” Hannah grinned. “See, I knew you two would hit it off.”

 

Molly giggled. “Well, we’re going for a drink after work at least, so...do you really think I look alright?”

 

“Yeah, you look great,” Hannah insisted. “Seriously, the problem with most women is they give too much on a first date, my advice? Always keep him guessing.”

 

“You know, Hannah, there is a shower in the ladies room if you want to freshen up,” Sherlock cut in, and Hannah sensed irritation there, although whether it was because he was unable to deduce anything about Molly’s date, other than the fact it was a first date and she clearly like the man because she was nervous about making a good impression, or simply because he felt that Hannah was holding him up by stopping to chat.

 

“Great, I might actually,” she smiled. “Where is it?”

 

Molly pointed it out to her and then hurried to get on with her work. Hannah decided to at least wash her face and, when no one was looking, blast an icy chill around her body to blow away most of the smell and make her feel a lot cleaner than before. When she got to Sherlock, she could instantly tell from his hunched position that he was _not_ happy. Smiling to herself, Hannah walked up behind him and asked casually “Anything yet?”

 

“It’s from someone who dyes their hair blonde, most likely a woman,” Sherlock muttered, flickering his eyes from his microscope to her. “Who did you introduce Molly to?”

 

Hannah shrugged. “Just a guy who used to live next door to me. I still had his number in my phone because he used to ask me to watch his flat when he was on holiday, you know, water the plants, feed the cat, all the usual stuff.” She hopped up on the edge of the table, swinging her legs. “He only moved because he didn’t get on with our landlady, they used to have terrible arguments about the rent, but he’s a nice guy, Sherlock, you don’t need to worry.”

 

Sherlock scowled at her. “I’m not worried, I just think she ought to be warned if the man’s likely to dump her in the space of a week.”

 

“Well, he won’t,” Hannah insisted, “and I don’t want you quote kindly saving her time unquote by pointing out all the man’s flaws and hurting her like you usually do. Sherlock. John told me,” she added when Sherlock frowned at her. “Of if you’re going to do something like that, at least leave it to John to break it to her, because unlike you he’s heard of a thing called tact.”

 

“Hannah, it’ll be a warm day in the Antarctic the day I start listening to lectures from a twenty three year old,” Sherlock replied, turning back to his microscope.

 

“Or Jotunheim,” Hannah muttered, and then added “Sorry, that’s the-”

 

“Realm of the Giants in Norse cosmology, yes, Hannah, I am familiar with the concept somewhat,” Sherlock finished.

 

“Realm of only one kind of Giant, actually, Sherlock, Frost Giants,” Hannah replied.

 

“And they are..?”

 

“Very big and very savage, according to the God of Mischief, but that could just be Asgard propaganda, I don’t know.”

 

Sherlock was quiet a while, and Hannah busied herself by jotting down some more notes against the ones she had already made that day, until finally Sherlock shoved his chair back and said briskly “Come on.”

 

Hannah glanced up. “Where?”

 

“To follow up another line of enquiry, and stay close,” Sherlock added, tucking the hair away into his coat pocket before opening the door and narrowly missing Molly with it.

 

“Oh, I thought you might want coffee,” she smiled, pressing a takeaway cup into his hand. “Black, two sugars.” She held out a cup for Hannah. “Or did you want tea?”

 

“Oh, no, coffee’s fine,” Hannah smiled, taking a grateful sip.

 

“Hurry up, Hannah,” Sherlock sighed, and she did so, shooting Molly a quick thumbs-up behind her back when he wasn’t looking. Molly smiled and watched them leave before making her way back to the slab, pulling on her gloves as she went.

 

“I’ll say this for Molly,” Hannah said, “if nothing else, she makes bloody good coffee.”

 

“I know,” Sherlock muttered, quickening his pace.

 

Hannah grinned and jogged after him. “So, where are we off to, then?”

 

“Somewhere rather seedy, so keep your wits about you,” Sherlock advised. “I don’t want to be on the receiving end of the Doctor’s anger if you end up being killed on my watch.”

 

Hannah giggled. “He might throw you into a black hole.”

 

“Well, exactly,” Sherlock muttered.

 

Hannah moved closer to him for protection as she followed him down an alleyway that led towards an open street. They crossed through a tiny park and ten down into the darker recesses of the city, the underpasses where homeless people and graffiti artists usually hung out. A few homeless looking drug addicts were chilling in various areas and Hannah kept a close eye around them just in case one of them suddenly ran at her or something. Sherlock motioned for her to stay where she was as he walked over to a pile of clothing that Hannah eventually recognised as a person curled up in one corner. He crouched and the pile raised their head, recognised Sherlock and began to mutter to him in a low whisper. After a brief exchange of words, Sherlock got back to his feet, thanked the person and walked back over to Hannah.

 

“Come on,” he muttered, gesturing for her to go back the way they had come.

 

Hannah frowned. “What was all that about?”

 

“If you ever want to know a lot about drug dealers, Hannah, ask Wiggins,” Sherlock replied, tucking his hands into the pockets of his coat.

 

It took Hannah a minute to get what he was on about. “What, you mean-?”

 

“Yes, according to Wiggins, there is no drug dealer named Mark Gibney, and not many drug dealers even handle acid these days, since it not being addictive means there isn’t much money to be made in it,” Sherlock reeled off.

 

“So, Tommy is definitely lying about that, then,” Hannah realised, “but then what _did_ happen to him?”

 

“Come on, Hannah, I would have thought that was obvious,” Sherlock replied, his coat swirling about his legs as the breeze took it. He noticed that Hannah didn’t shiver the way most would have done. “It can’t be alien abduction, because people don’t cover up alien abduction, they tell people about it, which means it must be alien substitution.”

 

Hannah stopped in her tracks and it was a minute or two before Sherlock realised she wasn’t walking with him. “They’re dead, aren’t they?” she said, slowly. “Tommy Jones and Joan Cox?”

 

“And Tommy’s parents too, I imagine,” Sherlock shrugged.

 

“Bloody hell!” Hannah groaned.

 

“Come on, Hannah, travelling with the Doctor, you must be used to this by now,” Sherlock scoffed.

 

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I can take it all in my stride like you,” Hannah sighed, walking up to him. “Since unlike you I actually _have_ emotions.”

 

“Just because I see sentiment as a weakness-” Sherlock began.

 

Hannah’s head snapped up and then in a move that actually completely threw Sherlock, not a feat he was used to, she seized him by the lapels, her brown eyes suddenly wide with horror.

 

“Never say that!” Sherlock stared at her as she finally came back to her senses and let go of him. “Sorry, Sherlock, don’t know what came over me. Well, I actually I do know what came over me, it...oh, forget it.”

 

She walked away. Smoothing down the front of his coat, Sherlock jogged after her. “Enlighten me, Hannah, who did that put you in mind of? A former lover? A family member?”

 

“A Dalek,” Hannah said, glancing at him. “Seriously, Sherlock, never think like that ever again, otherwise you’ll be no better than they are.”

 

Sherlock thought back on what he knew about the Battle of Canary Wharf, not that much information had been released about it at the time, and realised what she meant. Was there really only a fine line between him and a creature like that, between a man who helped people and a man who destroyed them?

 

It was a somewhat scary notion.

 

They made their way back to Bart’s in silence and called a cab from there back to Baker Street. Sherlock immediately took up Hannah’s Monster File, along with her notebook, and began to scan it for anything relating to alien substitution, whilst Hannah took a long shower and changed into some clean clothes before padding into the kitchen to get something to eat. She did offer Sherlock something, but he stubbornly stuck to the whole “digestion slows me down,” argument, so she just made herself a sandwich in the end and joined him in the living room. Eventually, though, Sherlock looked just about ready to give up, and Hannah decided she couldn’t take his pacing any longer.

 

“Look, Sherlock, you haven’t even read the whole file yet,” she sighed. “Why don’t you go to bed and carry on in the morning?”

 

“With an alien invasion looming on the horizon? Well, that might be the way you do it in the Tardis, Hannah, but here on Earth we do things a little differently.”

 

Hannah sighed again and then remembered something. “Hang on, I didn’t check that email from Osgood. Maybe it’ll help.”

 

She opened up John’s laptop and logged in, only to see that she now had an additional new email in her Inbox, from Sarah. Assuming it would be the same as Osgood’s, she opened it and then her eyes widened in shock.

 

“What?” Sherlock asked, tucking the notebook into his top shirt pocket.

 

“Sherlock,” Hannah said, not taking her eyes away from the laptop as she said it. “We have a problem.”

 

_Dear Hannah,_

_Mr Smith has identified the plant as Rakweed! You need to find where it came from otherwise Raxicoricofallapatorans will destroy the Earth!_

_Let us know if you need any help,_

_Sarah Jane._


	10. Alien Attack!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Tardis pitches up again in Baker Street, Sherlock and the Doctor decide to have a little fun...Wife-Swap Style!

“Rakweed!” Hannah cried, practically flinging the laptop off her lap and onto the sofa as she sprang to her feet. “Why didn’t I twig? It makes sense now; the chip sandwich, salt and vinegar, they’re vulnerable to the acid in vinegar and the letting off, the smell, I said it was like rotting milk, it’s the calcium-!” She took a deep breath. “I’m such an idiot!”

 

“No.”

 

Hannah glanced over at Sherlock who was acting surprisingly calm, more so than she had expected.

 

“No, what?”

 

“No, you’re not an idiot, Hannah,” Sherlock stated. “You’re a lot of things, but an idiot isn’t one of them. You’re a lot cleverer than most people your age, and with the amount of aliens you seem to face, it’s natural for you to forget, since you have neither a Mind Palace nor the brain of a Time Lord.”

 

Hannah blinked at him. “Careful, Sherlock, you were almost being nice there for a second.”

 

“Well, don’t get used to it,” Sherlock muttered, picking up the Monster File and flipping through it until he found the page on Raxacoricofallapatorius and held up the page that had a photograph pinned to it. “This is what we’re up against?” he asked with a grimace.

 

“That’s what we’re up against,” Hannah agreed, running a hand through her fringe and then grimacing as she fluffed it up accidently. “I should have twigged earlier when you mentioned the sandwich; of course they’d have thrown away anything with vinegar on it straight away, never mind the mess, Racacoricofallapatorians aren’t exactly big on tidying up other people’s messes.” She took a deep breath. “And the fact that all the victims are on the large side, why didn’t I get that straight away? They can’t compress their bodies into anything smaller, or even if they can, they still find larger bodies more comfortable.”

 

“So they’re wearing their victims’ bodies like suits to blend in with humanity?” Sherlock reasoned.

 

“Infiltrate and kill, that’s what the Daleks would say, anyway,” Hannah agreed with a nod.

 

“And their main goal is to destroy the Earth-”

 

“And sell it for a profit, at least that’s what it was the last time I met them, and I’m assuming they haven’t changed since then. I just wonder if it’s Blathereen we’re up against, or Hostrazeen, or Rakdeen, or Slitheen.”

 

“Does that matter?” Sherlock scowled, impatiently.

 

“Well, no, but I just don’t want to call them by the wrong name-oh!” Hannah suddenly clapped both hands to her mouth. “Sherbet dabs!”

 

“What?”

 

“I just remembered something!”

 

Sherlock scowled at her again. “I don’t need to be observant to have worked that one out already, Hannah.”

 

Hannah ignored him. “Slitheen, Blathereen, whatever, they’re good at tracking targets, even streets away, even across the other side of this city, and they must know we’re onto them now!”

 

Sherlock abruptly dropped the file and both strained their ears for the sounds of anything outside the flat. After a second, they both sprang into life, Sherlock to the door with his gun and Hannah to the window, although when both were opened, there was no sign of anything alien anywhere.

 

Sherlock lowered his gun, thoughtfully. “They might have tracked us to the underpass.”

 

“They wouldn’t bother with drug addicts, Sherlock, they’re too thin,” Hannah replied, shutting the window and then hurrying to her room to snatch up the wok, not it could do much good against a Raxacoricofallapatorian attack, but she felt safer having it than not.

 

“Well, where else did we go today?” Sherlock muttered, and then both of them came to the exact same conclusion at the exact same time.

 

“Bart’s!”

 

In hindsight, Hannah reflected later, she probably ought to have stopped to raid the kitchen cupboards for any vinegar or lemon juice or even Pepsi, but at the time her only thought was, like Sherlock, to race to the morgue as quickly as possible, jumping into the nearest taxi and not saying anything to each other along the way, too worried about what they might find when they got there. So, it was something of a relief for both of them when they got there, rounded a corner, and almost crashed into a very surprised looking Molly. Even so, Hannah knew that she couldn’t relax until she made certain that her friend was alright and so she quickly grabbed her by the shoulders.

 

“Molly, quick, what happened to you in the graveyard, that day you helped us fight the weeping angels? What happened to you specifically that didn’t happen to the rest of us?”

 

Molly blinked at her and stammered “I got an angel imprinted in my mind because I looked at it directly in the eyes.”

 

Hannah breathed out and gave her a hug. “Sorry, I just had to check.”

 

“What’s going on?” Molly asked, flickering her gaze to Sherlock.

 

“Aliens,” Sherlock replied, bluntly concealing any worry that might have come out in his voice otherwise. Truth be told, he had been a little concerned that Molly might have been killed by the Raxacoricofallapatorians one way or another, after all she was the best pathologist he knew and the only one who took his usual blunt treatment of her with a pinch of salt and no arguments, that was all it was, he told himself, nothing more, although somehow Hannah’s words of a few days previously came drifting back into his mind even as he thought this.

 

_“Yeah, right.”_

 

“No time to explain properly,” Hannah insisted, pulling away from Molly. “We need vinegar and lots of it, or ketchup or something, anything that’s bad for calcium.”

 

“Well, we do have a staff canteen, there might be something in there,” Molly replied, glancing over her shoulder, and then automatically hurrying after her friends as they darted in the right direction. If aliens were invading then she wanted to be as close to Sherlock – a man who knew pretty much everything – and Hannah – a girl who knew more about aliens than both of them put together – as possible. Together the three of them raced into the canteen and began raiding the kitchen cupboards.

 

“Lemon juice,” Hannah muttered, gathering up everything she had found so far and depositing it onto the table, “lime juice, orange juice, half a large bottle of Coke-”

 

“I’ve got pickled onions and pickled cucumbers,” Molly added, depositing two large jars onto the table.

 

“And two whole bottles of vinegar,” Sherlock muttered, dragging over two enormous plastic canisters that had been stacked on the floor beneath the counter.

 

Hannah blinked. “That can’t be good.”

 

“Why, is that not enough for all of them?” Molly asked, worriedly.

 

“No, I mean it can’t be good for the people who work here if there’s that much vinegar in their food,” Hannah replied, already unscrewing the top on the bottle of Coke.

 

The sound of approaching footsteps caused them all to tense and freeze, and then in a flash Sherlock had snatched the nearest jar and wrenched it open, holding it aloft, ready to use as a weapon. Then the doors swung open and Molly relaxed, but Sherlock and Hannah readied themselves as Joan Cox walked into the canteen.

 

“Think you’ll find the morgue’s closed now,” Hannah said, coolly.

 

“Just as well,” crooned Joan with an evil smile. “It’s just the right place for another three dead bodies, don’t you think?”

 

Sherlock stepped in front of the two women, still ready with the jar and Joan at once recoiled with an angry hiss.

 

“No respect for the dead?” Hannah asked. “Why don’t you at least show these two who’s _really_ threatening us?”

 

“You’ve not changed a bit, have you, Hannah?” Joan stated, her smirk falling back into place as she raised a hand to her forehead and pulled across, in a motion very similar to a human unzipping a zip. Sherlock and Molly watched in somewhat nervous anticipation as a neon blue light erupted through the zip-like slit and then in one motion, the skin-suit fell to the floor as the large green creature hiding inside emerged. The only one unfazed was Hannah, naturally, due to her having met them before, although she still felt slightly sick at seeing the alien shed the human skin as if it were nothing but a bathrobe. The alien, green, with bulbous-black eyes and long claws that matched the sliver Hannah had found at the Donmar perfectly, a large stomach and skinny legs, merely chuckled, however, and stepped forwards. “You were just as sharp back when I first met you.”

 

Now her voice was different, higher than Joan’s, Hannah recognised her. “Kela Triska Fon Sharlaveer-Slam Slitheen?”

 

“Miss me?” Kela Triska Slitheen asked, waving her arms. “You’re all on your own this time, Hannah, no Doctor to help you out now.” She turned to point an extended claw at Sherlock. “Put that down!”

 

Sherlock glanced at Hannah. “Does that ever work?”

 

Everything suddenly happened very quickly. Kela Triska Slitheen flicked her long forefinger and a thin dart shot from it and hit Sherlock squarely in the chest. Hannah and Molly both yelled as he stumbled backwards, tripped over the giant vinegar bottles and fell to the ground, dropping the jar in his hand, which naturally shattered. Kela Triska Slitheen laughed as both Molly and Hannah threw themselves down to the ground to check on him, and Hannah gasped.

 

“Poison! She’s female, they shoot poison darts!”

 

Molly’s face hardened with determination as she sprang to her feet and threw the open bottle of Coke at the still laughing Slitheen woman. Kela Triska Slitheen emitted a disgruntled shriek as the acid hit her skin and then in one neat eruption of methane gas from behind, she exploded into pieces. Grimacing, Hannah got to her feet as Molly glance worriedly back at Sherlock.

 

“There’s nothing we can do,” she said, snatching up the rest of the foodstuffs.

 

Biting her lip to keep from crying, Molly ran after her as they sprinted out of the canteen and along the corridor, skidding to a halt when they found three more Slitheen barring their way. Hannah noted the dead skins that had once belonged to Tommy and his parents lying on the floor behind them, and she recognised the largest of the three when he spoke.

 

“Well, if it isn’t the little cleaner girl.”

 

“Jost Fel Fotch Happen-Bar Slitheen,” Hannah replied. “We meet again.”

 

“Why are you doing this?” Molly asked, desperately. “What do you want?”

 

Jost Fel Fotch Slitheen pointed a long claw at Hannah. “Revenge. You and your meddling Doctor wiped out half our family.”

 

“You were trying to destroy my home planet, what did you expect?” Hannah exclaimed. “That I wouldn’t try and defend it?”

 

The Slitheen hissed at her and then Jost Fel Fotch Slitheen pinned her to the wall with one swift swipe of his long arm, restraining her with muscular fingers. Hannah gasped as she felt her airways beginning to close up and the acetic acid-filled foods sliding to the floor, glass bottles smashing and others merely spilling their contents as far away from the Slitheens’ feet as they could get.

 

“You’re too small for our compressors to handle,” Jost Fel Fotch Slitheen hissed to her. “Old technology, you know, not been updated yet, which is a pity.” Hannah kicked at the air, trying to find some way she could throw him off, although she knew from experience just how strong Raxacoricofallapatorians were. “It would be such a delicious irony if we were to kill one of our enemies and wear her skin as a disguise.”

 

“Molly..!” Hannah gasped. “Get out of here..!”

 

The other Slitheens had backed Molly up against the opposite wall, however, and all she was armed with was one small bottle of lemon juice, which she flung at the smallest Slitheen, the one that had been masquerading as Tommy. It squealed in a high pitched tone, although her aim had been off and the plastic bottle just bounced off its head without splashing any of the juice on its skin, and that gave her a sudden idea. Without stopping to think, Molly brought back her arm and smashed her elbow into the fire alarm button.

 

At once, a high piercing ringing emitted throughout the corridor, but the Slitheens merely laughed.

 

“You think that can stop us?” the Slitheen not holding Hannah laughed, before aiming a long claw at Molly. “That only works on Krillitanes, not Raxacoricofallapatorians!”

 

Wheezing, Hannah shook her head. “You lot shouldn’t have filled up on all that Rakweed before you came here, you know!”

 

Both Slitheen exchanged a frightened glance and then glanced at one another’s stomachs. They were both writhing and expanding, and expanding, like balloons being blown up. Jost Fel Fotch Slitheen dropped Hannah and she took a gasp of air as with high screams of “Nooo!” that, along with all the ringing, caused both girls to slap their hands over their ears, both exploded in globs of green. The smallest Slitheen, however, knocked Molly to one side with its arm and yanked at the fire alarm, ripping it from the wall and silencing the sound.

 

“I don’t like Rakweed,” it growled.

 

Molly and Hannah began to crawl backwards away from it as rapidly as possible as the Slitheen advanced on them, but just as it was hissing and raising its claws to slash them, a faint brown liquid splashed out of nowhere all over it, and both women looked up to see Sherlock holding a canister of vinegar and panting in triumph.

 

“Typical naughty child, doesn’t eat its vegetables,” Sherlock chided as the Slitheen screamed, staggering backwards away from them before it too exploded in a burst that left them all covered in green globules of freshly-exploded Raxacoricofallapatorian flesh.

 

Molly staggered to her feet and held out her hands for Hannah to take. “Are you alright?”

 

“Fine,” Hannah replied, massaging her bruised throat. “Not the first time I’ve been strangled by an alien, believe it or not.”

 

“You’ll need to get some ice onto those bruises,” Sherlock replied, calmly setting down the canister.

 

Both girls glanced at him in surprise, still shocked that he had suddenly come running to their rescue like that.

 

“Sherlock, how-?” Molly began.

 

“Come on, Molly, you don’t think I’d enter a potential alien warzone without some form of protection, do you?” Sherlock asked, opening his coat and showing them that Hannah’s notebook was still tucked into his shirt pocket, at the very point the poisoned dart had hit him. “I read your file, Hannah, remember? Why do you think I got in front of you two back in the kitchen?”

 

Hannah gave a relieved smile and tugged the dart out of his coat before stabbing a piece of Slitheen flesh with it. “Better tell UNIT to be careful when they clean that up.”

 

Sherlock nudged a piece of Slitheen flesh with his foot. “That was very quick thinking with the firebell, Hannah, making them explode via the Rakweed.”

 

“That was Molly, not me,” Hannah said.

 

“Was it?” Sherlock looked genuinely surprised.

 

Molly blushed. “Well, I remembered that day, when we fought the Weeping Angels, Hannah, you told us that if the Slitheen eat Rakweed and then get near a high frequency, it can cause them to blow up. I mean, it was a gamble, I didn’t know if they’d eaten any, but...it worked.”

 

Hannah smiled. “The Doctor’s going to be very proud when I tell him.”

 

Sherlock watched in admiration as the two women hugged, admiring Molly for remembering such a thing even though that event had happened years ago. Perhaps she was like him, stored knowledge and trivia away for future use, although of course he wouldn’t admit that she had managed to impress him.

 

Would he?

 

They waited whilst Hannah got through to UNIT and asked them to do some cleaning up at Bart’s Morgue, aiding a little themselves by cleaning up what mess had been made with the food, Hannah, of course, in her element there, and then the three of them waited by the front door until a UNIT van pulled up and a woman with blonde hair dressed in a smart black uniform approached them. She introduced herself as Kate Stewart, head of UNIT, and after she and Hannah had exchanged greetings, she sent her people in and took statements from the three of them before sending them on their way.

 

Hannah tucked her hands thoughtfully into her pockets and glanced at the sky, both Sherlock and Molly noting that she must have been cold in the evening air, and yet she wasn’t shivering, or covered in goosebumps. Somewhere up there, Hannah noted, more and more alien species were watching the Earth, just waiting for their chance to pounce and invade. When were any of them going to learn, she wondered, that no matter how many times they tried it, humans, and other aliens, would always defend it, would always defeat them?

 

She glanced at the others. “Is anyone else _really_ hungry? Because I’m starving; should we grab something to eat?”

 

Molly giggled and glanced at Sherlock, who shrugged and turned up his collar in that “cool” way of his. “Why not? Case is closed, I think I’ve earned the right to eat.”

 

“Great,” Hannah grinned, slipping her arm through Molly’s. “You can pay. Come on, Molls.”


	11. At Last!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Tardis pitches up again in Baker Street, Sherlock and the Doctor decide to have a little fun...Wife-Swap Style!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was actually painful to write because I just wanted to get it over and done with very quickly. The next WhoLock related fic will, of course, be Part 2 of the UK Avengers series, to be posted asap (and like I said before if you haven't already done it, go and read Part 1 - Loki's Angels to get the backstory of the Doctor and Hannah's friendship with the God of Mischief before you go reading Part 2)

“Hannah, whatever it is you’re hiding,” Sherlock mused, “you need to tell the Doctor, because he will work it out sooner or later.”

 

Time had passed very quickly since the Slitheen attack, with Sherlock tackling several other large and mysterious cases – none alien – which had turned out to be to do with drug smuggling, computer hacking, murder and theft, and which Hannah, and surprisingly sometimes Molly too, had accompanied and aided him with. Now, however, was finally the morning that the Doctor was due to be back with John – Hannah had spoken with them both the night before, and learned that they had seen the fall of the Triskadeen Cosmos in the late 3000s, met Henry the Third and aided with the building of Westminster Abbey, and even gone hiking up to the top of Mount Etna after infiltrating a tour group, and she was looking forwards to being back on the Tardis again after her week off.

 

“You still haven’t deduced anything, Sherlock?” she asked, sitting up a little straighter in her chair.

 

“I’m working on it,” Sherlock replied, studying her. “I keep learning new things about you every day. For example, I know that you play guitar.”

 

“How?”

 

“Simply because the second time we ran into you, back when the Cybermen were invading, I noticed grooves in your thumb, index and middle finger where you’d clearly been holding a plectrum.”

 

Hannah blinked. “Alright, I’ll give you that.”

 

“I also know that you hate eating anything too salty, if you picking the anchovies out of your pasta last night was anything to go by, that your favourite song is Strange Magic by ELO because your mouth twitched visibly the other day when it came on the radio, almost like you wanted to start singing along with it, that you prefer dogs to cats, that you hate getting your hair wet when you’re outside because it makes it go frizzier than usual, that you’re getting along better with your brother now after that talk in the pub and that you enjoy watching older films and television shows, particularly ones by Gerry Anderson, in spite of your automatonophobia.”

 

“I’m not even going to ask how you know all that, Sherlock,” Hannah said, “and just for the record, Gerry Anderson’s puppets look too realistic to freak me out like mannequins do.” She glanced at him. “Isn’t that enough? Do you have to know every single little thing about a person before you can leave them alone?”

 

Sherlock just shrugged. “Force of habbit.”

 

Hannah finally laid down her notebook and tore a few pages from it. “There we go, in case John wants to write this up on the blog.”

 

Sherlock wrinkled his nose. “You really think people will be interested in a mystery that ends with aliens being the culprits?”

 

“Well, it might make a change,” Hannah shrugged, getting to her feet. “He doesn’t have to use them.” She stretched. “Or he could just use the other mysteries we solved together, even though the Slitheen one’s definitely the most interesting one.”

 

The door opened and Mrs Hudson walked in, offering Hannah a friendly smile and a large plain Tupperware box. “Hello, love, I made you something to take with you.”

 

“Aw, thank you, Mrs Hudson,” Hannah smiled, inspecting the contents. “Ooh, Battenberg cake!”

 

Mrs Hudson gave her a hug. “I have to say, I’m a bit sad you’re leaving, although it will be nice to have John back. I always feel a bit safer knowing we’ve a doctor in the house.”

 

Hannah giggled as Sherlock just rolled his eyes and then sat up as the bell rang downstairs, before shaking his head. “Lestrade,” he muttered, “and Molly.”

 

Mrs Hudson went downstairs to let them in and Hannah picked up her rucksack, glancing knowingly at Sherlock. “Wonder how Molly’s date went the other night, I forgot to ask.”

 

Sherlock just scowled at her.

 

The door flew open and Molly flung herself at Hannah with a delighted cry of “Good, I thought you might have left already!”

 

Hannah laughed. “Well, the Doctor did say today, but in the Tardis, that could take up to three weeks, so you lot might be stuck with me longer than expected!”

 

Lestrade grinned as he walked into the room and then noted Sherlock’s scowl. “What’s up with you?”

 

“Nothing’s “up” with me, Lestrade, except that it’s very hard to concentrate with inane chatter and idle questions being fired in my own living room,” Sherlock retorted.

 

Thankfully, his friends were saved from responding by the familiar scraping sound of the Tardis materialising in the middle of the living room. Hannah smiled as it finally fell silent and the doors swung open, and the Doctor tumbled out, dressed in his usual mad attire with the additional fez and the same scarf Hannah had borrowed from him during their Big Ben battle with the Cybermen, throwing his arms in the air with a yelp of “Whoohoo! Hello, everyone!”

 

“Hello, Doctor,” Lestrade grinned.

 

Hannah ran up to give the Doctor a hug. “Aw, did you miss me?” the Doctor asked.

 

“Um...” Hannah teased.

 

“Aw, that’s not fair, Hannah,” the Doctor replied, playfully giving her a sad look. “I missed you.”

 

“Did you?”

 

“Of course.” The Doctor patted the top of her head. “You know how I like my tea.”

 

The others laughed, and even Sherlock cracked a smile, as Hannah looked rather put out by that remark.

 

“How was it?” Lestrade asked as John emerged from the Tardis with a suitcase.

 

John grinned at Hannah. “I’m beginning to see why you enjoy it so much, although I’m beginning to think I do have it easier after all.”

 

“No, you definitely have it worse than me,” Hannah insisted.

 

“No, Hannah, _I_ live with a sociopath, _you_ live with a madman.”

 

“Excuse me, Sherlock and I are still here!” the Doctor exclaimed, rather indignantly. “We haven’t been sucked into an alternate time loop or anything!”

 

“Sorry, Doctor,” Hannah smiled.

 

Molly giggled. “So, who wins the bet, then?”

 

The Doctor glanced at Sherlock. “What do you think?”

 

“Well, the whole point of the bet was to see if they could hack living each other’s lives for a bit,” Sherlock shrugged, finally getting to his feet. “Hannah might not be as quick acting as John in a crisis, but she seemed to cope.”

 

“Excuse me, I’m as fast as I need to be when it comes to aliens,” Hannah insisted, folding her arms.

 

“Well, you seemed to handle everything just fine, John,” the Doctor replied with a smile. “I’d say it’s a dead heat.”

 

“Aw!” Lestrade rolled his eyes. “That’s no fun. I was hoping you’d get to humiliate Sherlock or something.”

 

Molly giggled again as Sherlock glared in his direction.

 

“Well, it wasn’t about winning,” Hannah shrugged, “just seeing if we could do it, and survive. And we did.” She grinned. “Like in “Around the World in Eighty Days,” we achieved nothing but happiness because it was the journey that mattered, not the outcome.”

 

“Clever man, Jules Verne,” the Doctor agreed, with a grin.

 

“Mm, I don’t know, Doctor, I prefer HG Wells,” Hannah shrugged.

 

“Atta girl,” the Doctor smiled, before clapping his hands together in his usual no-nonsense way. “Right, is this everything, Hannah? Where’s the lethal wok?”

 

“Right here and still lethal, Doctor,” Hannah grinned, wielding it. “Although I’d consider Molly as an alternative weapon in the face of aliens.”

 

“Really?” the Doctor grinned, turning to Molly, clearly impressed.

 

Molly blushed at all the sudden attention. “I didn’t do that much, Hannah.”

 

“She got two Slitheen with a firebell,” Hannah exclaimed.

 

“Slitheen?” The Doctor raised his eyebrows. “Are they all dead?”

 

“As far as we can ascertain,” Sherlock replied, “although it’s a pity, it did prove to be quite an interesting little mystery for a while.”

 

“Bit hard explaining to the friends and families of the victims, though,” Lestrade added. “You’d think with it happening more and more these days, people would be used to it by now.”

 

The Doctor smiled. “Well, one day there’ll come a time when Earth’s left in peace, no alien invasions, no battles between humans and intergalactic species, and everyone can go about their lives happy and content. But until that day comes, we’ll always be there.” He picked up Hannah’s bag and deftly thrust it inside the Tardis. “Anyway, I’ve got a great idea for where to go next, Hannah!”

 

“Ooh, where?”

 

“Restoration Britain! How would you like to meet the man who stole the Crown Jewels, Hannah?”

 

Hannah grinned. “Only if we can help him.”

 

“Ooh, Batenburg cake!” the Doctor added, now examining the contents of the Tupperware box. “Excellent!”

 

“Well, I hope you like it, Doctor,” Mrs Hudson smiled.

 

This delayed goodbye ritual was getting a little wearing for Sherlock, so he was somewhat glad when the Doctor bestowed a hug upon his landlady, along with a cheeky peck on the cheek that set her giggling like a schoolgirl.

 

“Thank you, Mrs Hudson, we’ll definitely find a good home for that!” the Doctor grinned. “Now, who else wants a hug? Molly!”

 

Hannah giggled and then caught Sherlock’s meaningful glance. Strange how a look could speak volumes sometimes. He raised an eyebrow at her and she nodded before he looked away to fend off the Doctor’s springy advances.

 

“Doctor, if you even think about it-!”

 

“Alright,” the Doctor grinned, thrusting out his hand instead to shake Sherlock’s and then turning to give John a hug. Hannah however walked calmly up to Sherlock and asked innocently “May I?”

 

Sherlock saw that she wasn’t going to let it go and sighed, heavily. “Alright, just this once,” he warned and Hannah grinned before hugging him. “Alright, that’s enough,” Sherlock muttered after about five seconds, pushing her away, though gently, Hannah noticed, and she rolled her eyes.

 

“Keep him in line, guys,” she muttered, hugging Molly tightly.

 

“Well,” the Doctor grinned, leaning against the Tardis. “Off we jolly well go, then, Hannah, until next time.” He waved at the others before stepping into the Tardis, and then quickly popped his head out again. “Oh, and don’t wait up,” he added, cheekily, before shutting the Tardis doors and dematerialising the ship, much to the alarm of the others.

 

Hannah threw up her arms. “I knew it would happen one day!”

 

Barely had the words left her, then the Tardis re-materialised with its usual scraping and grinding of gears and Hannah quickly ran inside before she could be left behind again. As the box faded from view once more, Lestrade stretched. “Always good to see them,” he muttered.

 

Molly took a step to leave but Sherlock surprised her by catching hold of her wrist. She looked up at him in surprise as he glanced at her, with the distinct hint of fear written across his face. It didn’t go unnoticed by any of the others either, but thankfully Mrs Hudson discreetly suggested a cup of tea and Lestrade and John followed her into the kitchen, leaving Sherlock and Molly quite alone together. Molly waited, wondering what had suddenly come over Sherlock as he turned to face her properly, hand still on her wrist.

 

“Molly, tell me the truth. Are my pupils dilated?”

 

“Yes.” Turning her fingers upwards to touch his own wrist, Molly added, hesitantly, “And your pulse is racing.”

 

Sherlock exhaled, irritated. “Damn it, I hate it when Hannah’s right.”

 

And, with that, he pulled Molly close and kissed her. Molly blinked and then returned it, stepping even closer to him. It was slightly messy, since Sherlock was new to it, but he quickly caught up with her and soon it became very pleasurable for both of them.

 

“Sherlock...”Molly began as they finally parted for air.

 

“I know,” Sherlock replied, flatly. “I know you’re seeing someone-”

 

“No.” Molly smiled. “No, I’m not seeing anyone. Hannah just made that up to test you.”

 

Sherlock glanced to the spot where the Tardis had formerly been, digesting this information. “I may have to drop her out of a window,” he muttered.

 

“Oh, shush,” Molly giggled, reaching up to kiss him again. Neither of them were really aware of Lestrade taking his cue to leave, muttering a “Tell me what happens,” to John as he left with Mrs Hudson in his wake, hiding a smile as she left, or John smugly folding his arms and walking into his bedroom with a head-shake and a murmur of “It’s about time too,” or of the fact that the Doctor and Hannah were observing everything through the TSV in the Tardis.

 

“Well done, Hannah,” the Doctor grinned. “You must be the first person ever to best Sherlock Holmes.”

 

“Well, I do find that on some occasions, women are smarter than men, Doctor,” Hannah teased.

 

“Only some?” the Doctor asked, raising an eyebrow. “In my experience, they’re nine times out of ten cleverer than men, Hannah.”

 

“Alright, there is that,” Hannah laughed, following him into the console room. Leaning against the Tardis console and watching her best friend fiddle with buttons and dials, she glanced down at her hands and felt a twinge of something inside, a knowing that Sherlock was right, she couldn’t keep this hidden from the Doctor forever, sooner or later he would have to know. She took a deep breath. “Doctor?”

 

“Yes, Hannah?” the Doctor asked, looking up at her with his usual cheeky smile.

 

There was no going back now.

 

“There’s something I need to show you...”

 

The End


End file.
